Cathedral Steps, victoria arches

The arches are right in front of Manchester cathedral under victoria street, they have been the centre of many arguments between urbexers. there is alot of hype about this place on how great it is! you i went with an open mind as i didn't want to be disappointed.
went along with fknsamuelbonney after the Manchester meet we went on, thanks to Sam for providing the climbing gear to make this possible and taking my along after he found the location for access!

the arches was used in 1939 as a bomb raid shelter and was supposed to house 3500 people but later changed the capacity was dropped to 1619 people.

one of the many famous signs down there! the one that people wrote there name on in the dust has been wiped clean by someone for a reason unknown to me, but the was some recognisable names in dust in other places!

if you ever come across pics of the arches you will always see these steps going down to the toilets, so i felt like i had to!



overall it was a great explore, somewhere i wanted to do for a long time and now Ive done it and it wasn't as great as it has been made out but it was still great to see!

Manchester meet august 08

The Manchester meet started off as a drain meet and soon turned in to more after a spot of lunch! but it started out as a drain meet. we ( thenewmendoza, bungle666, sheep2405, pr1vate piles, andyj23uk, peanuts, smileysal, fknsamuelbonney and myself) did a few drains which was easy to say the least but it was a drain virgin meet!

the first drain was a river tunnel thing which was quite roomy and none smelly! :)





only really got one photo from the second and it was where the drain met up with a sewer overflow! that's sheep2405 in the pic coming in for a rest!

as i said it soon turned from the drain meet to the what else can we do meet, we could see a mill near to where we all dined and managed to get access in a way which i think must be new to the world of urban exploration! on shear comedy values that is! dont know the mill new sorry!

we managed to gain access to the tower to my delight as i was something to see and also got on to the roof as you can see the door open in the pic below!

lift shaft cables and motor

it then had another turn and went on to Radcliffe school not to far from the mill itself, it was a little creepy walking through an abandoned school as i remember them being place full of people and it was my first abandoned school! found this on the way to asda for mendo's fags!

playing in the gym, found the ropes all still set out and some of us decided to have a swig on them for old times sake!!

overall it was a great day out cracking a few new sites in the not so far off area to myself along with meeting a load of new people which I'm hoping on been able to meet up with again soon!

Mersey Tunnel trip

Went along with fellow explorers to have tour on the mersey tunnel, was a very intresting trip, they went through the history and the making of the tunnel before being taken on to see the fans, the fans for the tunnels air intake and exhaust are 28 feet in diamiter each! which is one big fan, and there are 5 of them in total! here are some pics from the trip:-

air exhaust fan covered in soot from car exhausts

turning exhaust fan.

the above fan is from the air intake, its a clean room as they take the air from outside

old cable supports, they used to have 500 mile of the big copper cables down here but now they use small fibre optics!

this is under the car way, its used as an escape route, runs the lenght of the tunnel was original going to be used for trams!

The Stanley Dock warehouse

Came accross this place as i was going on a tour of the mersey tunnel thought it was worth a go!

The Stanley Dock warehouse designed by Jesse Hartley was built in 1848. The dock itself links to the Liverpool and Leeds Canal. It also stands apart from all the other Docks in that it was built on the landside of the dock road. The original warehouses are of a similar design to those at Albert Dock and are grade II listed buildings. Part of the northern warehouse was demolished after sustaining damage in an air raid during the Second World War.

plans have been unveiled for the warehouses to be redeveloped into office space and a total of 930 apartments. The plans involve digging out the centre of the tobacco warehouse to create a garden-filled courtyard.

the next two pics are from the top off the castle style tower in the above pic, had to go up the spiral stairway of death!