Exploring Underground Manchester - The Wishing Well shaft

In 1973 a vertical shaft and an underground chamber were discovered in central Manchester beneath a restaurant. This is the story of how and what was discovered.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Manchester
• Underground
• tunnels
• proshow
• Ken
• Howarth
• caves
• wells
• exploration
• local
• history
• archaeology
• shafts

[kenhowarth2]

True there are no photos of the chamber, I simply did not have a wide angle lens to do it. As far as I can recall it was still partly backfilled with sand and rubble and the attempt to empty it had stopped because there was groundwater coming in from somewhere. It was all in the red sandstone peculiar to that area of Manchester. KH

[kenhowarth2]

Thanks for all your comments regarding the mystery object . It is likely that it had corroded sufficiently so as to lose any detailed bits and pieces, both suggestions are quite feasible though. KH

[silver760]

The mystery item resembles a crucible of some sort,possibly for melting lead to secure ironwork to stonework which was common.

[muttman325]

The object resembles a lead on the end of a lead line as used on ships to find the depth of water. It also had a rebate in the bottom that was filled with tallow to pickup a sample of the bottom to see what it was made of. I.e sand,gravel etc. Ofcourse it would need a hole at the top to tie the line to.

[grassboarder3001]

its a cup

[dogshagga2]

take the object you found to a museum they might be able to tell what it is but pretty cool story and nice pic of cannon street with no arndale!