As the city has grown, much of the natural drainage of "Bradford-dale" has been culverted, and the city built over the top of it. The main watercourse - Bradford Beck - goes underground close to the ring road to the west of the city and travels predominantly eastwards before swinging north, under the city centre, and coming back to day near the ring road to the north of the city and then flowing down to join the River Aire near Shipley. On its underground route it is joined by a number of other watercourses which are also culverted, including Westbrook, Bowling Beck and Eastbrook. Unfortunately, some of these culverts act as overflow conduits for raw sewage!
Historically, there were a number of occasions where the underground system has proved incapable of handling the volumes and this has led to flooding in the city centre. To alleviate this, a 1km bypass tunnel was created to divert excess water from the upstream culverted section of Bradford Beck direct to the downstream section, thus avoiding the long loop under the city centre. This was extended by a further 0.5km to also capture excess water from the Westbrook.
AR said:
More 28DL territory than UKC, but during my time at Bradford Uni I got into the Bradford Beck overflow tunnel one drunken night, it was under construction at that point and the big shaft on Woodhead Road was open, laddered and lit....
This would have been the access to the Westbrook extension tunnel which passes by Woodhead Road - the main bypass tunnel going from near Thornton Rd to near Queens Rd. As far as I know, the Westbrook culvert is briefly exposed at the rear of the university; and Bradford Beck itself is briefly exposed under Tumbling Hill St.
All of which is possibly interesting - but not very much to do with Caving
