Mystery towel rail

[Rusty86]

Anyone got any idea what's going on here? Trying to remove a single towel rail from the bathroom. It has pipes going through the wall from a cupboard in the hallway.

Thinking it must have been connected to an old hot water tank?

The pipe has a stopper at one end and then goes to a valve and pipe going through the floor of the flat above and below.

All of the joints a seized and not budging with the spanner - is there any danger in just cutting the thing off?

 

[45yearsagasman]

Get pair of grips or a spanner and loosen that plug in the downward facing elbow. Don't remove it completely. If there's any water inside you'll soon see. My guess is that it's part of an old gravity hot water system. Many older houses were piped like that.
My guess is that it's redundant. Don't cut until you're sure it's empty. What system is installed presently?

 

[Rusty86]

Thanks - It's pretty well stuck so not had any luck getting it off...

The flat is currently a combi-boiler system with the water supply coming from elsewhere.

 

[Rusty86]

Got the end cap off after finding a slightly more heavy duty spanner - a bit of very dark grey water but nothing very dramatic.

Cut through the pipe and with a fair bit of elbow grease got the thing off. Cheers