well this
i guess i'll be on my way now
debate time
everybody we also feel like we're in
someone's back garden because there's a
chair there jen
a little bit of poetic license in
today's video but we are nonetheless
looking for a flow of water that goes 73
miles in length starts 50 meters higher
than it ends using gravity so that
sounds like a river to me sounds like a
river so let's go in search of this
river that is not necessarily a river
but it is a river but it's not a river
but it is a reverse knob is it river
let's just go okay goodbye
[Applause]
so it just so turns out that this river
that isn't a river actually produced
some architecture that the the railway
and canal engineers of a previous era
would have been proud of themselves now
it's pretty worth mentioning as well
that this video wouldn't have come to
our attention this idea wouldn't have
come to our attention if it wasn't for
jen hello internet this is it you may
recognize jen you may not but this is
genji from jen on the move we'll come to
jen's channel in a bit and there's also
bryn hi brian hello and this is rebecca
hello and i'm paul so join us today as
we go and say jen what are we doing
uh we're taking a look at the aqueduct
where my childhood water came from right
so this this
i've called a river but this aqueduct
you could call it an aqueduct if you
want to gently this aqueduct river
uh supplies birmingham with water yes it
does right okay we're gonna go in search
of this aqueduct river uh in a bit
[Music]
right so this is the the beautiful elon
uh dam
can you ever cease to be amazed by the
the beauty of a damn like that can you
the engineering is just astounding yeah
it's right to jen where we get
gem
where's tango i know where she is
[Music]
so from the industrial revolution into
the 1800s the water quality
in birmingham as it grew in its
population became pretty poor so they
needed a water supply i guess what they
did is they approached the welsh and
said can we have some of this beautiful
water you possess
now what that meant was in around 1900
they built a 73 mile pipeline from the
elon valley and the dam we've just seen
up there all the way into birmingham and
what we're going to try and find today
are some of the wonderful architecture
that that's left us with so we're going
to catch up with jen and bryn and try
and find some but have you seen this old
suspension bridge look at this
[Music]
that's really confusing isn't it
right so what we're trying to do people
is we're trying to find
and i mean we'll see it just the other
side there um an aqueduct
or the accurate the whole thing is
called the aqueduct but what should we
call that a viaduct it's not a viaduct
is it it's an aqueduct
is that conducted water
an aqueduct holding the aqueduct
found it
well looks like a beautiful old railway
viaduct basically doesn't it yeah um it
won't build them like that now would no
look it just beautiful isn't it first
opened in 1904 1896 it gained
parliamentary approval and it's it looks
like a railway viaduct i'm repeating
myself
um so do not climb danger of death
um
probably sound advice which i'll take
so this is this is an oxbow road i don't
know if that's a term that jen's just
made up or gareth dennis is made up of
geeks have adopted it from the rivers
too yeah and i like that so bryn's going
to make a youtube channel very shortly
right bryn
hey
[Music]
um it was the clay cross company and it
was founded by as sorry founded as
george stevenson and co in 1837 they had
coal mines iron works brickworks and
pipe factories which would have provided
pretty much everything you'd need
so we're just trying to figure out uh
there's obviously some uh pins i want to
say um sort of re-uh structuring that's
the right word the the carmel aqueduct
we've just found
and it sort of relates as broom was just
saying it relates to
george stevenson uh company founded 1837
sadly closed in the 90s
but yeah obviously they were 150 years
old and they were still helping
reconstruct uh beautiful architecture
like this albeit for water rather than
trains and stuff
and shame
in the latest they didn't do a good job
of them oh yeah and uh presuming they
also did that as james says presuming
they did that in the 80s the the the
concrete
atrocity that now goes over the road i
mean for goodness sake people have a
little bit of um
i don't know architectural respect oh
yeah absolutely
[Music]
so we know that the aqueduct starts
about 230 meters above sea level and
we're discussing that it lost 50 meters
in elevation
to get down to birmingham and we know
that this aqueduct uses gravity to get
the water from a to b down to birmingham
so if you lose 50 meters now that
pipeline could be a thousand miles long
and the water would still get from a to
b because of gravity so we also know
this pipeline uses siphons from time to
time and we couldn't shake one thought
from our minds
now a on the diagram is for the elin dam
and reservoir and b is well b for
birmingham
if we draw a straight line downhill down
our 50 meter drop however long the
distance is clearly the water will flow
down
now even if we undulate this through
some of the hills of wales well as long
as you don't go above the line of the
horizon from the starting point
you can pretty much unjake as much as
you like at least that's a theory
but
this is a very very preliminary question
to where we are now because currently we
are
380 meters above sea level we're looking
on our observation tower
we've passed a point
what was it about two miles about that
way yeah where it was higher where it
was about 330 meters and it was above a
stream but that didn't add up we'll go
back there shortly and we'll find out
exactly why
the big question is even though it loses
50 meters to get to birmingham it's
probably got to gain several to clear
these mountains but the question is
observation tower implies in my head
1700s
90 engineering of a canal where they
needed a line of sight to build a tunnel
why do you need an observation tower on
something that was built in 1900
as jen said i think we're going to find
out in a moment if we make it without
cardiac arrest
[Music]
right so the ladder looks really ropey
isn't it it's not actually attached when
he's just stood there swaying in the
wind so we're not going to be stupid and
climb that
[Music]
so this that observation tower there is
part of a pair we only assume it was
used to as a line of sight now here's
the next question
we think there's an exposed bit of the
aqueduct piping at 320 meters
back the way we came about two miles
we're going to test that theory because
jen doesn't think that's great jen you
think it's deeper don't you i think it's
deeper
i think we're going to get to this
location and actually not find anything
over the stream right because it would
logically be too high
yeah this year and that highlights our
point so we're saying 320 meters
is a hundred meters above its starting
point in terms of elevation so if it's
100 meters above the elin viaduct that's
a heck of a siphon or something that's
needed to power it over and above you
know what you would think is sensible so
i like james fury but i'm not sure
because the article we looked at says is
exposed above the stream yeah
so we found the location which looked
like it was in someone's garden well
that didn't stop gin and eventually i
caught up
digging a bit deeper on the web kadu has
this listed as a shaft which definitely
adds up and it turns out this was indeed
part of a tunnel around 210 meters above
sea level around about 100 110 meters
below where we are now so jen was
definitely right we're looking for a
shaft here not a section that goes over
the stream we don't want to go on the
land in front of us because it looks
really sort of marshy and very sketchy
and we don't know what is under there
but we're going to have a quick scout
over the side we say so jen
this is great i'm really pleased that we
actually did take the time that you
suggested and come and find this because
at least we know it gives us more
context this is deep level this is at
least 100 meters below us
nothing to do with what wikipedia says
which is above the stream moral of the
story don't trust wikipedia yeah well
absolutely go on to the um the official
website have a gen with you have a gen
as well who will convince you to just
make sure we're talking about the right
thing so this is part of the 6.8
kilometer 100 meters below the ground we
also feel like we're in someone's back
garden because there's a chair there jen
we had free access though so
right everybody right right let's have
some sensible chat because we think oh
into jen's persistence
it doesn't go above 220. now that's
interesting because now you find us just
to the west of ludlow beautiful historic
market town or town with castles and all
sorts of weird and wonderful old
buildings you find us to the west in
bridge
bridgewood bridgewood not confused with
not because of bim bromwood not
brilliant
which is a shame because if it was your
would bring i would respect you
right yeah so anyway but the point being
people there's a whole wealth of
wonderful stuff
up that hill which we're going to show
you right now so whilst we are coming
towards the end of our journey and
despite the fact the aqueduct goes on
for another 30 miles towards birmingham
we're not going to show you that because
we're running out of time it's now 4 p.m
we want to go home and go to sleep or
eat food so
however up that hill just up there is
some utterly beautiful wonderful stuff
so stick with us for the next few
minutes and we will bring this wonderful
stuff to you
[Music]
private property
no on authorized
admissions security cameras all around
it
1902
so this was built a couple of years
before actually ran
so wikipedia says it's a pump house it's
not a pump house because it's it's
gravity and siphon
one of the siphons must be under the
valley just down there because
if the pipeline is at 200 220 there well
that goes down to 180 meters now we just
put the drone up in here and you can see
the the cutting that they've
[Music]
made duplicate of the um the building we
saw the other side of the valley
birmingham corporation um you can't see
it because i've decided to choose a
really stupid
angle of sun direction
but um yeah duplicate across the valley
where we're looking at just earlier now
just through the woods behind the camera
is the uh
the money shot and a half
this is what we've been trying to find
for the last hour walking through
bridgewood right ahead of me you can see
the top of it doesn't know very
impressive from the top
but nevertheless it obviously is
[Music]
there's a lot more to see that we
haven't looked at today because of lack
of time so if there's a stuff we've
missed let us know what would you what
would you go and advise we have a look
at this wonderful aqueduct um big thanks
to bryn and jen go and subscribe to
jen's youtube channel the link's in the
description below go and subscribe to
bryn's youtube channel he hasn't made
yet but he will make right bryn
eventually eventually but dude go and
watch jen on the move uh link in the
description below
we're going to disappear now
i'm hungry yes get some food thanks for
watching everybody really appreciate
your time
and we'll see you this time next week
[Music]
you