Trying to find a well...... Again.....

[tobydog]

The Hillman Imp was one of my favourite rally cross cars in the 70's. They always had so much character and held their own. I like this one doing a Herbie impression :shock:

 

[Onetap]

As soon as i saw the maps i remembered that although the driveway is almost completely flat, there is a slight depression at exactly this point where water collects when car washing etc.... I now presume this to be settlement of some kind.

It's likely it has been infilled and the filling has settled. In which case, there would be nothing of any use, it would be daft to try to dig it out.

 

[Onetap]

Haha... i know. Family weakness I'm afraid. I actually have 4 :?

ISTR the engine (described as jewel-like by Honest John, my encyclopaedia on all car matters) later appeared in the Talbot Sunbeam.

I have vague memories of repeatedly trying to seal a head gasket on what was probably a distorted engine block.

 

[AMc]

Thanks for the info AMc, much appreciated.
I am still only considering what to do, and I guess the first thing for me to do will be to open up the well itself and have a looksie.

You're very welcome . My indoor well is vented with a length of 60mm waste pipe under the floor slab and into the ventilated cellar. No condensation issues. You need to consider servicing the lighting and switching it too - could be fun with a nearby PIR.

I would suggest the first thing to do is formate two plans based on these scenarios
1. You find a lovely concrete cap over a perfect beautiful brick built well.
2. You find a pile of hard core stuffing a rough hole in the ground and you've ruined your block weave to get there.
Then adjust your actions accordingly

Nice, though the well is, it was a pothole in an already over budget and over time project. Visitors come in through the back door go "Oh a well", we turn on the light. They talk about how nice it is and if they're brave stand on the glass (it's 3m to the water and 4m to the bottom. Then we turn the light off and go and sit down. As residents I've almost never turned the lights on for my own entertainment and it was dashed expensive.

 

[dinglem]

Thank you yet again AMc.

My initial plan was to lift one brick in the centre of the well depression and dig/poke down directly below that and see what i find. Obviously i would use suitably long and strong timber bracing to kneel on at this time in case there is a sudden collapse! If this investigation doesn't get me anywhere then i will widen the hole a little by a few more bricks and keep going.

If all i find is a mess then at least i will have the peace of mind that the drive isn't going to collapse at any point in the future.

I have enough projects on the go to have this on the back-burner for a while but seeing as i have been hunting for this well location for years and years i am suitably excited enough to want to investigate straight away. The only thing really stopping me is the lady of the house insisting that i finish the kitchen first :?

 

[Flyfisher]

The Hillman Imp was one of my favourite rally cross cars in the 70's. They always had so much character and held their own.

The Imp engine was also the dominant engine for inboard hydroplane racing around the same time - which, being a water sport, is slightly less off-topic. :lol:
http://www.imps4ever.info/specials/boats.html

 

[dinglem]

Correct! Andy Chesman used to tune Imp engines and became Hydroplane World Champion in the early 70's.The engine in the turquoise car above is a Chesman unit and revs to 10,000rpm

 

[Flyfisher]

We knew Andy fairly well as Mrs FF used to race in the faster outboard hydroplane classes (and held a British Water Speed Record for many years). Andy eventually transferred to outboard hydros but was sadly killed in a racing accident, along with a number of other fellow racers during the 80s before safety cells were introduced. It's a ridiculously dangerous sport!

 

[dinglem]

His apprentice Ben Boult took over from him on the Imp tuning side of things and is still going to this day, having bought up all of his stock when he tragically passed; Greetham Engineering becoming A C E when Andy took over, and now Corley Conversions. Ben works on my car engines for me. Small world indeed.

 

[worms]

It's likely it has been infilled and the filling has settled. In which case, there would be nothing of any use, it would be daft to try to dig it out.

I would tend to disagree. Without digging, you will never know what is there and you will always wonder.

In our case, a very small hole appeared in the driveway, a couple of metres away from where I had always suspected the well to be. I tried increasing lengths of garden cane down the hole and found neither a bottom nor water. Eventually I was brave enough to start digging and found that the well is intact (nice, round, dry-stone construction up to ground level) but filled with boulders. I removed enough of the rock to find water at about 17 feet down but had to put it all back and covered it again with concrete slabs until some future lottery win allows me to do something more permanent.

I think the rise and fall of the water level caused the infill to settle and it is possible that your settlement could be similar. There may be nothing of any use left as Onetap suggests, but equally it is possible that the well is complete, as mine is.

 

[dinglem]

Would i be wrong to assume that back-filling might have actually helped to preserve the brick structure and support it?

I am hoping to find a perfectly round and presentable brick lined structure, and if it has been back-filled I will be definitely up for cleaning it out. Who knows what i might find if that is the case. If i just find a mess then i can cover it over again and won't have to worry about the drive collapsing. I have spent far too many hours staring out of my bedroom window trying to spot different coloured patches on my front lawn where the well might be to not now have a look.

This map from 1902 (house central left, marked with an arrow) shows a dot just to the right of the house annotated with a gigantic 'W'. There are other wells in the area too.

This slightly earlier one from 1884 shows the dot in exactly the same place, and the word 'Well' is annotated adjacent to it.

This is exactly the spot where the drive is slightly depressed; the depression measuring almost exactly 1m in diameter.

 

[Onetap]

You cannot be serious.

The infill (if any) will be lending support to the walls of the well.
So, if you dig it out, what might happen???

You haven't said how you'd dig it out. I wouldn't go down it.
It may not be brick, it's over a hundred years old, it has been buried for a long time and it probably won't be in very good structural condition.

ISTR someone went down a well about 10 years ago (on the Isle of Wight?) to dig out debris at the bottom. The fire brigade spent the next few days digging him out, using sectional concrete shoring, in the slight hope that he'd survived in an air pocket. He hadn't.

 

[dinglem]

So, if you dig it out, what might happen???

Part of my job is excavating and inspecting large pad footings (such as those you would find at the base of pylons for example), ground investigations and foundation design. Many of the excavations we cover, including abandoned mine shaft identification use shell and auger drilling rigs to extract material and assess, amongst other things, stability. We also regularly use hydraulic shoring which provides graduated and controlled pressure plates to the sides of any excavation, such as 4-5m deep trial-pit trenches.

So no, i'm not going down the well, and yes I do know how we're going to remove any material we find. It may collapse, if we let it, but i wouldn't be very good at my job if it did.

You cannot be serious.

Very serious as it happens. Thanks for your input though Onetap.

 

[worms]

I wouldn't go down it.

Amen to that! Anyone who goes down a well is taking a big risk. I hope that my earlier post wasn't construed as suggesting that going down a well to dig it out by hand was an option that I would take.

In my case, the boulders used to fill it were all fairly loose and appear to be providing little in the way of structural support to the walls. At the top, smaller rocks and then gravel had been used, but from a few feet down there was nearly as much open space as rock.

 

[Onetap]

Part of my job is excavating and inspecting large pad footings (such as those you would find at the base of pylons for example), ground investigations and foundation design. Many of the excavations we cover, including abandoned mine shaft identification use shell and auger drilling rigs to extract material and assess, amongst other things, stability. We also regularly use hydraulic shoring which provides graduated and controlled pressure plates to the sides of any excavation, such as 4-5m deep trial-pit trenches.

So no, i'm not going down the well, and yes I do know how we're going to remove any material we find. It may collapse, if we let it, but i wouldn't be very good at my job if it did.

Well, well, that's splendid. I defer to your wisdom on such matters.
It must have been your previous query..............

Would i be wrong to assume that back-filling might have actually helped to preserve the brick structure and support it?

.................that had caused me to assume you didn't know what you were getting into.

The well structure would stop at the water table and would be liable to dry up in summer. If you want a water supply, why not just drill a borehole with your auger rig?

You couldn't remove any filling and leave the well structure without any new internal supports, given that it now has a building near it and it cannot be surveyed foir structural integrity. What would be the point of digging out the filling?

Thanks for your input though Onetap.

My pleasure.

 

[dinglem]

OK, that's more than enough of that.

I'll upload some pictures of mine when i start exploring, and for what it's worth we use uphole logging to assess ground conditions and stability, weathering characteristics and so on, of boreholes and (primarily oil) wells (am currently on a research ship offshore Angola conducting a seismic survey right now).

I asked my earlier question because there are obviously people on this forum who have actually got experience in opening up their own water wells (capped, back-filled etc...) and might be able to contribute and share their experiences, rather than just pointed opinions.

I am impressed that you appear to know how stable my well is going to be on the inside and that i will definitely need further supports inside once it is open (it may not even be back filled), even before we have actually seen it.

Spot - good luck locating your well and i hope the map website is of as much use to you as it was to me.

 

[Penners]

Would i be wrong to assume that back-filling might have actually helped to preserve the brick structure and support it?

Unlike Onetap, I don't think you would necessarily be wrong. If there is a brick well structure, I think it's quite possible that infill might have helped to support it. But - as already discussed - I definitely wouldn't risk climbing down inside to dig it out. Not without proper, expertly installed shuttering, anyway.

 

[LadyArowana]

But - as already discussed - I definitely wouldn't risk climbing down inside to dig it out.

You have some small grandchildren for that task don't you? :lol:

 

[Penners]

Yes, but they're already fully occupied up the chimney.

 

[LadyArowana]

Yes, but they're already fully occupied up the chimney.

A trip down a well will clean them up nicely then! How is the little Eggwood, he must almost be big enough for productive work now?