[spandit]

A little background information...

When we first looked round my new house, the owner mentioned that she had found a recently published book that contained the memoirs of someone who used to live in the house during WW2. She said whoever buys the house will get a free copy and I was determined to only ever read it when it came free with the property

True to her word, she left a copy and I've started reading it. It was lovely to lie in bed reading about someone describing the room I was in, as well as a drawing of the author as a young boy looking out over the lane, at a gate that's still there.

On one page, he describes the top paddock and says how there was a spring in it. Not having seen this before, I decided to have a look. A small search later, with the help of the amphibious stink hounds and sure enough, there is standing water halfway up the field! It needs digging out a fair bit but we haven't had rain for a while so I'm thrilled that we have another water supply...

[Steph Hen]

Thats really lovely and cool!

[Bionic]

Aww, how nice 

[spandit]

Once the broadband gets connected I'll post some pictures, although it just looks like a boggy field at the moment. Going to have to get a mechanical digger in as doing it by hand is virtually impossible as shifting stinking lumps of root filled sod has already broken one spade and isn't doing my back much good either...

[suziequeue]

WOW!!! Lucky you 


Just imagine - you could have left the book on the shelf and never known that.

[spandit]

WOW!!! Lucky you 


Just imagine - you could have left the book on the shelf and never known that.

Would have never have left the book alone once I knew about it. It's a tragic story as they lost the farm in the end due to fowl pest.

Plan is to dig a 5m wide round pond, surrounded by willow most of the way round with a piped overflow feeding a pond down the hill. I think this will help keep the marsh grass down as the water won't be spreading over the rest of the field

[suziequeue]

Oh - ponds are so lovely. We got a huge one dug a coupe of years ago which is fed from the field drains (I was planning in feet - my OH was planning in metres and he was here on the day the digger arrived!!!).


We have som much more wildlife now and the swallows skimming over to feed and get a drink in the evenings. It's just lovely 

[MAK]

Congratulations on the spring and happy digging before the ground gets too wet. Should be a very valuable resource ( source being french for spring  ).
We channel ours thru a 30 cm wide pipe that we have burried under a bit of soil then downhill it fills watering holes for the animals then overflows into another channel and pipe. Reduces under ground water loss and ensures watering holes.

[spandit]

Ground is already sodden around the spring. Really heavy going trying to dig it out. I've marked out the area with canes this morning. Snapped the 2" thick handle on my new spade, so not happy with that. Need a fibreglass or polypropylene handle next time.

[shygirl]

many digger men wont work in winter if its wet so be prepared for a wait, unless you are doing it soon.

[spandit]

many digger men wont work in winter if its wet so be prepared for a wait, unless you are doing it soon.

Hoping to hire a mini-digger and have a play myself!

[spandit]

Haven't got round to hiring a digger yet but a fair few hours of spadework has uncovered what I think is the source. More by luck than judgement, I found the end of a plastic drainage pipe, about 2' underground. It's metric, so not that old. With my drain rods, I started clearing it but soon came to a hard and impassable blockage, about 3m in.

Some further investigation (digging!) has found a load of old bricks/rubble etc. buried next to the other end of this pipe - I presume someone has filled a pit with rubble to keep it open and then piped the overflow away, although not very far - perhaps it used to reach to the surface?

Have also found an iron pipe leading in a different direction. It's completely blocked (only small diameter, about 20mm) and I've snapped it with the spade anyway. Not sure where that leads to - I suspect it used to lead into a collection tank a little way downstream.

The book (and subsequent conversations with the author) mentioned a large wooden barrel - unless someone has carted another one up there, I dug up a wooden stave!

There are still odd patches of standing water elsewhere in the field so it's probably not the only spring, don't know if I can remedy that without some serious work but at least for now I have a small trickle of clean water. Once I manage to dig down a bit further, I'll sample some.

Oh, also rescued a frog from one of the test pits I'd dug that had filled with water. Released him into the more open bit but don't know if he stayed there or whether the dogs ate him. I've filled the pits in now and left no straight sided traps