"Depends what's causing the pressure," Jake replied. "We need to open that grate. But not with cameras. Dave, suit up."
"Mr. Chandry. I’m the owner of the antique shop, 'Chandry’s Curiosities'. The drain at the back has been gurgling for a week. Now? The flagstones are lifting. And there's a smell , lad. Not sewage. Worse. Like old bones and wet ash." drain company wolverhampton
"Flash flooding," Jake said quietly. "In the 19th century, workers would have come down here to clear blockages. If the brook rose suddenly... they'd be trapped. Drowned. And their bodies would settle into the sump." "Depends what's causing the pressure," Jake replied
But at the far end of this lower chamber, there was a machine. A steam engine. A horizontal single-cylinder beam engine, rusted into a tableau of decay. Its flywheel was half-buried in silt. Its brass gauges were cracked but still gleaming in the torchlight. And from its exhaust pipe, that rhythmic water pulsed. Dave, suit up
But Jake couldn't shake the image of that bronze grate, the motto "Fidelis et Fortis" —Faithful and Strong. Faithful to the city. Strong in the face of darkness.
A bone. Human. A femur, yellowed and smooth, rolled out of the hole and clinked against Dave's boot.
"That’s not a drain," Jake said, kneeling to get a better look at the screen. "That’s a culvert . A damn old one. Probably from the 1840s, when Wolverhampton was the centre of the canal boom. They built these to divert the Smestow Brook underground to power the forges."