Drainspotting

drainspotting
drainspotting

Drainspotting – the art of ‘collecting’ manholes | Whatever destination we explore, we always hope to satisfy our drainspotting addiction, too. If a manhole or drain cover catches our attention we take a snapshot of the desired object. Some drain covers are pretty spectacular, especially the older ones.

England is a good source for drainspotting. Still, we haven’t been to Japan yet, the country said to have the most amazing drain covers. Our very secret source claims: 95% of the municipalities in Japan have their own customized drain covers! But ok, since we haven’t been to Japan yet, these are our finest examples so far ->

drainspotting london
This inspectional cover we found in Hastings, England. Winser and Co. are recorded as sanitary engineers at Buckingham Palace Road in the 1915 Post Office London directory.

manhole shanghai
Our second manhole is from The Bund in Shanghai, China.

manhole england
Ductile Iron Manhole Cover, Stanton & Staveley. We also drainspotted this on in Hastings, England.

gulli leipzig
Germany is not half as interesting as the United Kingdom when it come to customized drain covers. But we caught  a few here and there. This rare one we snapped in Leipzig.

drainspotting hayward
Another nice example of a customized manhole in England. When hunting for drain covers it’s not long before the name of ‘Hayward Brothers’ starts to crop up with regularity. The Hayward Brothers (William and Edward) where part of a notable family of glaziers and glass-cutters, who made the move into the ironmongery trade.

drainspotting beitou hot spring taiwan
For tourists Taiwan might not have much to offer, except a few manholes maybe? This one we stumbled upon near the Beitou Hot Springs on the southern edge of Yangmingshan National Park.

drainspotting brugge
Not too spectacular, but shiny: over for drink water pipes in Brugge, Belgium :)

drainspotting putrajaya
Welcome to Malaysia! Drain cover spotted in Putrajaya.

drainspotting landsberg
Manhole in Landsberg, Germany.

drainspotting malaysia
Another rare drainspotting success in Malaysia. Gas pipe cover.

drainspotting lasvegas
What drains in Vegas stays in Vegas.

drainspotting taipei
Taipei, Taiwan.

drainspotting usa
Not much to comment here.


Drainspotting. By Chili & Tshirp | Hugging horizons since 2004 | Visit our Travel Alphabet.