Lying out on the grass of Walham Green, a circus was in town and setting up camp nearby. Gringz was curious about the Wall of Death. I was more interested in the tunnel of death below us. This storm relief, isn't the longest in London, but clocks in at around two miles in length. Kev showed up, and we opened a handy lid to reveal a 10m ladder in an RCP drop. More disturbing was the fact that there were items of discharge clinging to the ladder a mere two metres from the top! When this baby fills, it really fills.

I'm not a particular fan of storm drains, mainly for the fact that they have much less escape possibilities. Unlike a CSO drain, which usually has lids every couple of hundred metres, a storm drain can go for miles without an escape hatch. And even then, the escape route will involve a manhole in the middle of the street. A choice between drowning and being decapitated by a No.67 bus. Dilemma's dilemmas.

As we crawled through into the main pipe, I was grateful that I was able to stand upright. The Pipe was around 6'8" at this point, with nothing but dirty water in.

We didn't have far to walk before we came to the spur that heads West a few hundred metres to Parson's Green. It was a smaller RCP, I was glad we hadn't decided to enter at the far end of it

Another short walk, and we found a brick pipe that came from the L0w level interceptor. At the other end was a weir chamber.

Inside the weir chamber, the interceptor flows in from the West, no more than a foot wide and ankle deep. But the walls of the pipe show a different story from past period's of heavy flow.

Gringz on a bridge to the ladder in the weir chamber. The pipe behind him carries the interceptor to join the fulham branch not far away. As explained above, the ladder is one of many that lead to a manhole.

The interceptor pipe on the left, the pipe to the storm relief below. In the centre a piece of oak acts as a weir.

After the interceptor, there wasn't a whole heap of interesting features. The pipe increased to around to around 8ft in height and stayed constant to the outfall. Not far from the outfall we found this chap, doing a good job at playing dead or confused as to why there was light down here.

As with other ventures into storm reliefs, there were numerous items most likely dumped by thieves down gutter drains. My collection of bounty, I didn't think the toothpaste tube would be a good idea to keep. All the cards were expired as well. The driving license belonging to some young woman from near Edinburgh.

We then reached a point where the water level rose dramatically, due to proximity to the outfall one would imagine. Wearing only wellies, it was Kev to the rescue in his waders. He wandered off around the bend, and reported back that he could maybe see an outfall flap in the distance, but couldn't be sure. Either way his waders had reached their maximum depth, and he turned around to come back. I noticed he was lighting up Gringz in an interesting way, and set my camera down for the shot below.

We then backtracked to come out the way we got in.

A map showing the relief's interaction with other drains. (A) is a bit we didn't get too, a weir chamber with the main interceptor. (B) is where we met the smaller spur from Parson's Green. (C) is the where the brick pipe from the interceptor joins. After we left the Walham Green, we went to try a lid (D) I'd found that I thought might lead into the Eel Brook. However, it just lead into a number of small corridors connected to the main interceptor. At the bottom of a set of flooded steps was a river of fast flowing fecal festerage.

Cheers as always to El Gringo and Kev for company and laughs.