d49xc
Member
- Messages
- 151
- Location
- Central Southern UK
As promised a day or so back here is something that may help those locating old wells/boreholes in their locality – or even rediscovering one on their own land.
The British Geological Survey (BGS) has put some of its well and borehole database online.
These are records of strata found during digging for wells and drilling for boreholes.
They may also record details of water found (or not found) and, on occasions, a chemical analysis at some point in time.
It is now a legal requirement that all holes below a certain depth are reported to the BGS – most drillers now report everything larger than a test pit. Many of the records now coming from test/exploratory bores sunk for pilings, road and motorway stability investigations, house subsidence issues, and even vertical heat pump installation bores.
Obviously most of the early wells dug were never recorded to the BGS – nor was it a requirement for it to be done. Some significant wells have been put on the database post event. Carrisbroke Castle on the Isle of Wight for example dug in ?1100 AD?.
The return vary in their quality. At one extreme we have a test/proving borehole from the BGS themselves leading to a detailed umpteen page report on the strata, substrata, fossils, bands within strata and so on. At the other we have a turn of the century single page mostly illegible report from a semi-literate well digger using northern English miners’ terminology from the late 1800’s: you get the picture.
You need “care” in reading too much into the locations for the early reports. Some have incorrect grid references on them and some are located by reference to local landmarks or house names which are no longer in existence. I know one locally where the map plan and the grid code AND the location description do not match! Some boreholes unfortunately are ‘lost’ - as opposed to being merely filled in/capped. Such reports are annotated at the end to the effect “ visited in 1957 – unable to locate – assumed lost”
Note also that the official BGS title for the borehole was the one invented for it when it was dug/drilled and again may well have been named after the local name for the house/farm/field at that time.
You can view the records though this access page
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/boreholescans/home.html
A new window opens. Don’t waste your time clicking/zoom on the map,… it’s easiest to click on the location dropbox top left and put in the post code or place name and it zoom direct to the map location.
On the results…..
Borehole in red are the deep one, boreholes in green are shallow ones and those in black are not available on-line. I’m not sure whether those in black are restricted, secret, confidential or whether they are just not uploaded. (I do know that some bores are definitely confidential)
The location on the map of the circles is taken from the grid reference in the well borer’s report.
Click on the coloured circle of interest and a popup will come up on the screen (if you ain’t blocked ‘em!) listing the individual ones at that spot (there may be multiple boreholes per entry). Click on the one of interest in the list and a new window opens with the scanned images of the paper records which you can go forward/back/skip to end etc.
For your interest try finding the deepest well in the UK. It is Woodingdean, Brighton: some 1200ft deep I recall. Once you have searched on Woodingdean, on the map result look for what is now a hospital centre left. There is a well listed at this point a red circle. That’s it – the name allocated to is Industrial school, Warren Farm
Didn’t some of the Cornish tin mines go down to 3000ft?
For a deep BGS proving borehole example search on Witney in Oxfordshire and look for the two red circles just to NW of the town centre in open country labelled on map SP31SW3. This is the 1500m deep Apley Barn borehole: 222 pages of analysis to read…errr maybe not.
The British Geological Survey (BGS) has put some of its well and borehole database online.
These are records of strata found during digging for wells and drilling for boreholes.
They may also record details of water found (or not found) and, on occasions, a chemical analysis at some point in time.
It is now a legal requirement that all holes below a certain depth are reported to the BGS – most drillers now report everything larger than a test pit. Many of the records now coming from test/exploratory bores sunk for pilings, road and motorway stability investigations, house subsidence issues, and even vertical heat pump installation bores.
Obviously most of the early wells dug were never recorded to the BGS – nor was it a requirement for it to be done. Some significant wells have been put on the database post event. Carrisbroke Castle on the Isle of Wight for example dug in ?1100 AD?.
The return vary in their quality. At one extreme we have a test/proving borehole from the BGS themselves leading to a detailed umpteen page report on the strata, substrata, fossils, bands within strata and so on. At the other we have a turn of the century single page mostly illegible report from a semi-literate well digger using northern English miners’ terminology from the late 1800’s: you get the picture.
You need “care” in reading too much into the locations for the early reports. Some have incorrect grid references on them and some are located by reference to local landmarks or house names which are no longer in existence. I know one locally where the map plan and the grid code AND the location description do not match! Some boreholes unfortunately are ‘lost’ - as opposed to being merely filled in/capped. Such reports are annotated at the end to the effect “ visited in 1957 – unable to locate – assumed lost”
Note also that the official BGS title for the borehole was the one invented for it when it was dug/drilled and again may well have been named after the local name for the house/farm/field at that time.
You can view the records though this access page
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/boreholescans/home.html
A new window opens. Don’t waste your time clicking/zoom on the map,… it’s easiest to click on the location dropbox top left and put in the post code or place name and it zoom direct to the map location.
On the results…..
Borehole in red are the deep one, boreholes in green are shallow ones and those in black are not available on-line. I’m not sure whether those in black are restricted, secret, confidential or whether they are just not uploaded. (I do know that some bores are definitely confidential)
The location on the map of the circles is taken from the grid reference in the well borer’s report.
Click on the coloured circle of interest and a popup will come up on the screen (if you ain’t blocked ‘em!) listing the individual ones at that spot (there may be multiple boreholes per entry). Click on the one of interest in the list and a new window opens with the scanned images of the paper records which you can go forward/back/skip to end etc.
For your interest try finding the deepest well in the UK. It is Woodingdean, Brighton: some 1200ft deep I recall. Once you have searched on Woodingdean, on the map result look for what is now a hospital centre left. There is a well listed at this point a red circle. That’s it – the name allocated to is Industrial school, Warren Farm
Didn’t some of the Cornish tin mines go down to 3000ft?
For a deep BGS proving borehole example search on Witney in Oxfordshire and look for the two red circles just to NW of the town centre in open country labelled on map SP31SW3. This is the 1500m deep Apley Barn borehole: 222 pages of analysis to read…errr maybe not.
