The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Land Management => Topic started by: dt400 on January 31, 2013, 02:02:42 pm
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Hi All Can anyone give me any info on Victorian field drains? The lower part on our field floods, I have been told that it never used to and it has old field drains which I had never seen till the other day when I noticed water running into a hole which sounded like a pot drain they seem to be about 20" down although I not able to tell as there is so much water. My question is how are they constructed , should there be anything to stop soil going down and blocking the drain, I have two running at the moment but the must be more, I guess it's a case of following the pipe back. Thanks Clive
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Hi, I have the same problem with our drains. We have a mix of old drains which seem to be constructed from large pieces of stone laid in a trench about 20" deep, they are loosely arrange in an inverted 'U' shape, sides and a top. The ones I have dug up so far are pretty much full of soil but seem to drain slowly. There are also some clay pipe drains which join up to the older drains. Our fields flood during heavy rain but drain within 24hrs. I do have plans to excavate at points where sink holes have opened up but dont fancy hand digging in heavy clay.
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Sorry to hijack your thread but i thought it may be the best place to ask if anyone has any ideas on finding existing field drains when you don't have a layout map to work from?
There are a couple of pretty wet areas in my field that need to be addressed but i would like to know if there is an existing drain which could be repaired before i go to the expense and work of laying a new one.
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Northerncrofter my first point of call would be google maps. they were done in a hot summer and on our aerial map you can see quite a lot of field drain patterns which I had no idea were there. Failing that, find the people who used to own your place if you can, or the neighbours, as they generally know. or the local water engineer can prob tell you (or might have helped his dad put them in!)
We are lucky as the local water engineer here was born in the now ruined cottage on our land, (which we now have PP to restore so he is chuffed about that too!)
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I'm in the same boat northern crofter - so I will be interested to see what responses you get
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i found our drains when one became blocked and a boggy or more boggy area appeared, to find the exact position i used ametal spike and pushed it into the ground at various positions until it made a hollow clonk, not like hitting a stone, the drains were in exact straight lines so easy to follow, some were full of mud and easy to clean out with drain rods but some had collapsed and hard work to dig out and re build
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The black art of.... water divining. Yes it works
The old way was with a forked hazel twig but welding wire works just as well. An old work mate of mine, George Slobom, was a grand master with a set of wires. He taught me and i have subequently taught (and suprised) others, The first time the wires move you tend to drop them in fright. It tends to work better on running drains but once you have the pattern worked out the rest is easy
Good luck
Jules
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water divining ... so chance..
If you want to actually guarantee finding underground drains you want a hire company like this
Ground Penetrating Radar (http://ashtead-technology.com/productgroup/instruments/814/)
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Oh ye of little faith. Try it..... it works :P
I'm no hairy hippy or god botherin' organic dreamer, i'm a fully qualified engineer.... It works.... Like magic
Jules
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Oh ye of little faith. Try it..... it works :P
I'm no hairy hippy or god botherin' organic dreamer, i'm a fully qualified engineer.... It works.... Like magic
Jules
Same here...it does work. Not sure how, but some people can do it reliably every time
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I'm willing to be proved wrong but IIRC a study was done that showed there is no scientific proof :huff:
I do believe in sixth sense, but in the form that the brain is taking all the information eyesight hearing touch taste smell and because everyone's brain is such a clever complex object it 'sees' an error in that information packet which it throws up and you get that 'feeling' that something is wrong. This might explain how you are able to do your water 'magic' but holding a twig though sorry come on! :raining:
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Example
Last year a local JP and church steward, David L, was looking to build a shed and needed to mark out the drains on the site. I went round with a couple of old wire coat hangers and walked the site with the wires in hand and canes in my bag and placed a cane every where the wires twitched. When David came home i had a good idea where the main drain lay but said nothing. I gave him the wires and asked him to walk across the site. The wires crossed and he dropped them in shock at the severity of the deflection. Only i knew that he had crossed the drain!
Sure enough when the builders started work the drain (an old piped ditch) was there where i marked it..... Yes it's magic
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The water engineer in our area (40 years experience, well qualified, THE water man in our parts) also does divining. And he's no fluffy hippy type!
Round here it is completely standard and accepted.
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We bought some land adjoining ours a few years ago, some very boggy areas, I would stamp footprints about and watch which direction the water filled them from, worked back to the source. An area which has been boggy for at least 20 years (welly-deep and lost my welly more than once, lucky I didn't stand in the bit where a spade went down to the handle!), is now terra firma, dug it by hand. Even found a small stone trough!
Trouble is, we find it addictive, we have enough to do without digging into more muddy patches and working back up the line to find problems, but we just HAVE to keep going back an doing a little bit more.
Normally flat stones across top of rough stone channels, but our last session unearthed very small clay pipes. Sadly these old drains were not built to cope with todays heavy tractors and machinery, which I think is cause of most of our problems.
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I've been working with our old drains just recently, if anyone is interested i'll post up some more with pics.
Like PHB says really I should be doing more important things, but there is a certain strange kind of enjoyment to be had from them!
Ours were constructed by placing flat stones in a line in the bottom of a dug ditch like a footpath. A drystone wall was then built to form the sides, flat capping stones put on top, then trench was back filled with stones, rubbish and soil.
Failures come in many modes.
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We use water defining to find the farm drains when there’s a problem. It can get a bit confusing at junctions but does work.
Two lengths of fencing wire about 15” long bent at right angles about 5” along. Go to a wee burn with a bridge and walk about 30m from one side to the other holding the wires about chest height and facing forward. You’ll get the feel for it and then you can walk your fields to see where the pipes cross your path.
It’s pretty horrible when it first works as you have to throw out some beliefs you’ve held a long time, but good luck! Some say imagining cold, deep water or waterfalls helps key into it.
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It's really scary when the wires first jump together - even more so if you try it with a couple of twigs
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I’ll try it
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"Sadly these old drains were not built to cope with todays heavy tractors and machinery, which I think is cause of most of our problems."
Too true - on land we used to farm, was 1 water trough, strange because it was 26 acres, but 1 mains water trough! Cows made a path to it (why do cows and sheep ALWAYS walk on the same path, slightly twisting too? I currently have one on my back field.) Anyhow, mum, donkey years ago, decided to get a contractor in to lay some pipe work to connect that mains trough to several others, that's when trouble began. "Oh, sorry mrs" came the reply as tractor hit a land drain and never repaired it!
I pride myself on my good memory and where we are, on a small field, it's wet, always wet, reeds, everything, put it down to landdrains and septic tanks. A few months ago, I came across some photos taken in the early 90's and that field is NOT wet, NOT 1 REED, a bit of damp but nothing else, so I got thinking, "what happened?" Then I remembered: a neighbour spread some muck with his big tractor/spreader, we told him DON'T go down that side, he knew better! Another neighbour with a bigger tractor had to come to the rescue and we were left with big welts in the ground, waiting for neighbour to come and repair (never happened) we forgot, land now wet.....
I was always told though, if you want to find a land drain or forgotten water pipe, get a contractor and digger in and tell them "Don't hit a drain or water pipe!" We and my sister had to have our septic systems replaced last year, she had new tank and pipes, we had new pipes. Sisters digger hit a water pipe, twice! We told him it was there, wouldn't believe us! Our contractor clipped a land drain (but repaired it).