GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

[email protected] · 30-04-2007, 03:32 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

wrote:

A neighbour recently told me that she could hear an underground stream
flowing beneath her garden, and suggested maybe it flowed across mine
too. Then someone sent me an old map of the West Hampstead area in
London which shows an underground stream passing more or less along
the boundary between the bottom of my garden, and the field next
door. If the stream lies on my side of the boundary and isn't too
deep, it might be nice to uncover it and create a natural pool. I'll
need some kind of survey to pinpoint it, of course - has anyone got
any experience with reliable people/companies who do this kind of
thing ?

Ken

Go to your council's Local Studies Centre, probably at the main
library, and look at a full set of maps. They will also have Council
Minutes showing when it was culverted (if not centuries back). But
it's unlikely you'll be allowed to unculvert it.

Someone near here told me that when they first moved into their house
they had a pretty little stream with primrose-covered banks running
down the side of the garden. Then one year it flooded. They're glad
it's now in a concrete strait-jacket.

As Lionel says, if it can be heard sloshing around, it's in some kind
of air-filled tube rather than seeping though the soil (in which case
you could at least dig a well). If your neighbour can hear it but you
can't, maybe they have an inspection cover which you could lift for,
well, inspection.

Chris