New surface water and foul sewer c.1979

[middlec]

Ellesmere Road (and the sewer that was built below ground)

Work disrupted Fairfield Road but mainly Ellesmere Road when the tunnellers met problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Peter T]

That last one looks like a tube station.

[Cleopatra]

Were those houses falling down?

[middlec]

Were those houses falling down?

No, not falling down as such, the front of the houses were propped up by the contractors to avoid anything drastic happening. When they were tunnelling underneath the road with "the mole" as it was called, they hit unmapped old river beds and rocks, and this caused subsidence to occur, and disturbance to properties. On the photos you can see some damage to the garden walls. However, they pumped a heck of a lot of concrete in underground to fill up the spaces, so these properties have now probably the best foundations of any houses in the Warrington area! The photos underground are much later, probably c.2008 (the foul sewer is on the left, within the larger surface water sewer) The area is quite large, originally there was a small railway in the tunnel to carry materials when it was being built. One access point to the sewer can be seen on Fairfield Road, near to Alexandra Park, where there are metal plates on the road.

[algy]

Unusual and interesting photos middlec, I have seen some similar to these before.