Megatron River Tunnel - Alan Brentnall
Midweek caving often takes on some bizarre themes, trust me, but this week's episode really was something else. Due to an interlude up in Orkney, I'd been out of contact with the group for a few weeks, but the last time I was underground on a Tuesday was a super little trip into Sidetrack Cave, after which we were called out to an injured lady in West Mine at Alderley Edge. But, sandwiched between the two events, was a short get-together in the Peaks Hotel where we discussed forthcoming trips. Katie suggested Megatron ....
So, here we were, pulling into Sidney Street Car Park in down town Sheffield, with the Yorkshire rain hammering on the roof of the car. Curtain twitchers in the flats opposite would have seen thirteen ragged individuals trying to change into various outfits as Louise, Katie, Jenny, Bernie, Steve, Howard, Luke, Mark, Grace, Chris, Matthew, Cat and I got ready for the weirdest caving trip yet. A trip I'd been wanting to do for years.
And so, after a brief attempt to contact David who was late and, apparently, driving in non-ending circles through the busy Sheffield Streets, one by one we followed Katie down a slope by the car park and into the waters of Porter Brook. Like many cities on this planet, Sheffield was built on a network of rivers which back in the day would have provided water, washing, power, transport and sewage disposal. As the city grew, these waterways were covered up, culverted and forgotten - to be later rediscovered by cavers, urbex explorers and occasional fat-berger busters.
The initial sections of the trip were slippery and interspersed with daylight interludes where the noise of the stream was overpowered by the din of the traffic. Carefully following others, and humming Peter Sellars' "Sideways through the sewers of the Strand", I made my way under the arched roofs, representing three or more centuries of differing architecture and urban civil engineering.
The stream got louder, faster and stronger as we approached the main junction with the River Sheaf, somewhere beneath Sheffield's main railway station. Now we were into serious water, deep in parts too, and, eventually, we reached an area where the river course was divided into three lanes, interlinked with brick and stone archways. Here, Katie said, SHAFF (Sheffield Adventure Film Festival) had held a subterranean cinema session!!
After this point, a deep and awkward open-air stretch led to a dual-carriageway of rivers, and this took us eventually to Megatron, a huge, wide arched passage where the water which got deeper and deeper. Hugging the shallowest bit, near to the wall, most of us eventually stopped, just as a distant brightly-lit exit came into view. Chris and Katie and some others carried on through even deeper, brown water to exit and then return, while we stayed and admired the amazing workmanship and took in the atmosphere of the place.
Retracing the route, Katie said that she'd never been upstream from the Sheaf-Porter junction, so we decided to have a look. Fairly modern roofing and smooth walking eventually gave way to deep water and serious submerged obstacles as daylight approached. At a sudden deepening, we almost gave up on the job, but Louise discovered an exciting but invisible narrow ledge some two feet below the surface, and you could just about balance (no handholds) and step carefully sideways along this to make an exit into the fresh air. Here were structures to keep the worst of the flotsam out of the culvert, and ladder-ways, but, alas, all exits were barred and the place was well-CCTVed - so back we went to the main junction and out to Sidney Street.
After a brief chat in the Rutland Arms we all headed off into the night ....
More photos on Facebook, but didn't really have the lightpower to do justice to the place.
Sideways through the sewers of the Strand on a Sunday afternoon
Sideways through the sewers of the Strand will be our honeymoon
Ankle deep folks in sludge dear we'll walk hand in hand
They do say that the sewers of the Strand are the finest in the land