Hidden Well, Well Hidden!

[bill1953]

Has anyone ever discovered a hidden well? A friend of mine in an urban English area tells me his neighbour has just discovered one in the garden of a large Victorian house. This house was built about 1880s and had a water supply. The brickwork in the well dates it as Georgian. It was found under a stone slab and is over fifty foot deep and has water which is clear. Apparently you have to notify the water company who come and test it and then charge you for the water! Yeh sure. He now has a nice free supply for watering his garden. I know about another that was found inside a pub. When you look at old maps they were everywhere, very few exist now. Are the majority hidden awaiting discovery?

[demi]

nice story.
we have an old well in our garden that we need to get cleaned out and dug down deeper to find clean water so we can hopfully go off grid.
but we're in macedonia, not england

[bill1953]

This is the spring well a few yards from my door just across the boreen (about six yards from my left in the avatar picture). It's only a few feet deep and I used it when the mains were off due to a burst. I heard of a woman somewhere in the West of England who ran a pub which had it's own spring and also collected rainwater. The water police found out and charged her rates because the water 'belonged' to them!

It's always worth a look in the bottom of old wells if you can do so safely. I have heard of people finding gold andf silver in them. Not left there by little people, more likely a safe place for hiding stuff. House robbers often hid their booty in wells and often it remained there if the perpetrator was caught and strung up or the like .

[Odsox]

The water police found out and charged her rates because the water 'belonged' to them!

I remember this first surfaced during the drought of '76, someone got done for using a water butt to water their garden as the water authority said the law stated that all rainwater belonged to them.
Had I lived in a house that flooded I would have been tempted to take them to court, or at least tell them to take their bl***y water out of my cellar.

[bill1953]

I wonder how long it will be before they tax the air that we breath? Or the wind especially, now that so many people use home windmills for power. At least if they tax sunshine we'll be better off than them that live in Spain or the like. We 'd get a rebate every year so we would!

My father grew up in an East Cork cottage where all the water for cooking and washing came from three huge heavy oil drums in the field to the side. I stayed there meself in 1978 and there's nothing to beat a strip wash in the open air though you couldn't do it in a built up area! There was a spring to the side and a well down the road. My grandfather who died aged 87 in 1956 never had any bill in his life for power, water or any utility!

[Odsox]

I have two private supplies, a spring off the mountain out back and a borehole for when the spring dries up.
As "our" government is going ahead with water meters, I wonder where they will put mine.

Mind you I can't see how they can possibly meter private supplies, which accounts for just about every house down this way.

[contadina]

It's always worth a look in the bottom of old wells if you can do so safely. I have heard of people finding gold andf silver in them.

There are occasional stories in the Italian press of bodies being found in wells and cisterns. These are rarely the result of nefarious doings, however but are because people have simply fallen in and lain undiscovered for many years.

[demi]

i didnt realise you pay for water in england. i thought it was just in hot contrys.
the waters free in scotland seeing as it falls from the sky every day.

i wonder, if all the water belongs to the government are you supposed to pay if you collect rain water too?

[bill1953]

It's always worth a look in the bottom of old wells if you can do so safely. I have heard of people finding gold andf silver in them.

There are occasional stories in the Italian press of bodies being found in wells and cisterns. These are rarely the result of nefarious doings, however but are because people have simply fallen in and lain undiscovered for many years.

That is surely worse than finding a dead pigeon in your water tank in the attic

[bill1953]

@Demi oh the government here would tax sex if they could find a way! Not that I am bothered because here again I would get a rebate!


@Oddsox I can't see this working either. Where I am they have put a nice little manhole at the side where the meter should go but not fitted the meter. I have heard people saying about how they will 'disappear' if fitted. I can't see the government paying out for every house in Ireland to have one fitted in the present economic climate it would take them years to get the outlay back and if they all 'disappear', what will they do then?

[oldjerry]

Don't know where all this stuff about paying for your water from you're own well comes from,I dont.And it isn't 'the government' anyhow,the water companies have been in private hands in the UK for years.They can't charge you for water you collect yourself either,wether off your roof or out of your spring.The drought thing as I remember it was all about a hosepipe ban,if you carried the water yourself in buckets you could use it on the garden even from the mains.You do however have to pay the council to test your own water source if you want to drink it.

[bill1953]

In the context we're referring to the 'government' is Dáil Éireann which does dictate policy on water in our country.

And isn't it right that the Welsh and Scottish have their own water boards leaving only the English at the mercy of private companies?

[Odsox]

They can't charge you for water you collect yourself either,wether off your roof or out of your spring

Not sure you're right about the spring, but you are about collected water from a butt. That was clarified in the case I was referring to earlier, although the water is still the property of your local water company, they allow you to use it out of the "goodness of their hearts" Or probably because there was such a fuss when they tried it back in '86.

the waters free in scotland seeing as it falls from the sky every day.

Don't they have water rates in Scotland or combined water & sewerage, always have in England, certainly since the 1940's.
I'm not sure if they abolished the "water rates" when they installed all the meters, as that all happened after I left.

[demi]

it think there is somthing included in the council tax to pay for maintaining the pipes ect. but you dont get an actual bill to pay and they dont measure how much you use.

[bill1953]

They do have charges in Wales and Scotland but it's from the respective water boards. In England every new home has to have a meter fitted. Some homes still don't have one but once you have one fitted it's in for life.