Culvert survey in Wednesbury

Today we were working at Wednesbury with Waterco (specialist water engineers) to try and explore the extent of an old culvert running underneath the site. We had discovered the culvert back in June, but had not been able to explore it thoroughly ourselves.

The guys from Waterco brought with them a remote-operated vehicle. Unfortunately there was not enough water in the culvert for it to operate properly, so various ad hoc efforts were made to improve floatation. Here we see the eventual result, with two 100mm water pipes lashed to the robot keeping its head (camera) up and its tail (propellors) down.


This is the main chamber with the outflow from the old tailrace seen in the distance. The culvert underlies three phases of building, the earliest being early 19th century, so the culverting of this watercourse probably dates from that period.