Where were we?
Oh yes ..the contents of the Tesco bag left in the catacombs under the Con.... that really was a bit of a curates egg. there were a few more packets of Swizzells Love Hearts, a framed picture of a Shetland pony, a Junior Membership card for iCandy on Blackburn Road and a few till receipts from Asda and Tesco for various surgical supplies. Unfortunately the receipts were too damp to establish the dates and times and what with the cost of the MQ1 and the NROL-36 hovering over the town there’s no money left in the budget* to run the supermarket checkout security cameras. No bad thing really I mean if the Predator guys at Creech Air Force base were bored looking down on Hyndburn, imagine having to sit and watch the comings and goings on these store tills for a day even!
BUT
There was a hand drawn map showing a series of tunnels leading from under the Con Club. The CRO after gas checking these tunnels did a bit of exploring. One going off in the direction of Moleside and clearly marked Gamblers Caves was blocked by a roof fall underneath the Abbey Hotel on Bank Street BUT the one going off in direction of the factory bottoms was followed to its point of deboucher * And you’ll never guess where that was? As per the photo .....half way up flipping Priestly Clough. Perfect one would say for someone to pop down and back from Holy Family School during breaktimes and free periods. No wonder the drone and satellite didn’t spot him.
As kids we used to be told that the brickwork shown here was part of the network of tunnels dug by the monks of the Grange at Black Abbey stretching all the way out to Whalley Abbey, maybe just maybe that story is more than a myth?
*Wait till we get next years revisedcouncil tax charges to pay for this lot.
**a term used by French spelunkers