Its been a while since i last ventured under London, problem is Ive visited most of the large diameter sewers now leaving only the smaller, unnamed and insignificant ones. While some swear by it, personally, unless there’s a good reason, i dislike the idea of stumbling and sloshing down small diameter pipes, you always end up soaked and dirty, there is a higher chance of gas due to less ventilation and most importantly, you have little chance of finding anything substantial.
In other words, recently I’ve being spoiled a bit. With the boom of the UK drain scene, new juggernauts, culverted rivers, storm reliefs and chambers are being found everyday. I don’t know about you, but usually i feel bigger is better, well i did, now I’m not so sure.
Officially titled as one of the “London Bridge Sewers”, Last Bastion is a system of sewers and tunnels within the city center which also connects to the Irongate, Nightingale and Tower Sewers and discharges into the Low Level Sewers No*1+2.
Being a sewer it was far more maze like then any storm relief or culverts i had visited. The tunnel branched and twisted at every corner, before long it became difficult to work out which direction to take and where we were heading. At its upstream end the London Bridge Sewer (Eastern Branch) is a small affair, a 5ft brick egg, an unfriendly place to be when your over 6ft. In less then ten minutes myself and site had collectively “mopped” the tunnel ceiling clean, revealing the yellow brick once covered in sewage.
As we progressed, each new connecting pipe bringing more sewage, the flow eventually began to rise. Before long we were wading thigh deep, our faces dangerously close to being splashed with every shuffle. More side connections, more sewage, fearing the tunnel would reach capacity before we found anything we debated turning back. A low rumble was audible in the distance, we pushed on slowly, the noise our final checkpoint. Given its age, the tunnel was badly damaged, bricks were loose / fallen out, water jetted from every crack and hole, it was like one of those water themed rides at the amusement park, except this water definitely wasn’t child friendly. Sloshing forward, weighed down by wet clothes and full waders the flow eventually diverted into the Low Level Sewer No*2, a dry multicoloured tunnel before us. A few hundred meters on, a short tumbling bay led us down, down to the true treasures of the London Bridge Sewers.
The pipe grew to over 12ft in diameter, the tunnel cobbled together from multi coloured bricks, altered and tampered with over the years. Dates and names scrawled into the mortar, ladders and chambers leading to other sewers, high level reliefs and basements long since abandoned. The area was a step back to a time before Bazalgette, before the great stink and city wide system, when sewers were built on an individual basis. This unorganization gives the London Bridge Sewer its uniqueness, one you likely wont find anywhere else within London, that alone is easily worth the trip required to get there.
