Wet area in field

spalpeen

Hi,

A part of the field next to my house gets quite wet after rain, like a big puddle or small pond. It annoys me and I wondered could I somehow 'fix' the soil to make it drain better.

But then i wondered should i do the exact opposite and turn it into a little bog or wetland? What would the advantages and disadvantages of each approach be?

The Continental Op

Any chance this wet area could have been a "dew pond"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_pond . If not maintained they fill in over time but tend to leave a round wet area. But more likely just a low lying part of a field.

iniscealtra

You could plant alder. It likes damp ground and have a little woodland area.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M8jiA9LjCjA

coillsaille

We had a wet area at the bottom of our garden which was always soft and marshy, even in summer. When I had a digger on site doing other work I had it dug out to a depth of around 1m at its deepest. This created a lovely pond, around half a tennis court in size. I planted lillies in it and marginal plants around the banks, other plants such as bullrushes came along by themselves and starting growing naturally. A few years later and it's a real wildlife haven, we have loads of newts in it. Herons are regular visitors to it as well as mallard ducks now and again.

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120475650#Comment_120475650

intersting, i didnt know about that phenomenon but i agree, i think its more just a low lying area

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120475873#Comment_120475873

great info,, thank you!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120475936#Comment_120475936

I like this idea. i actually thought about digging it out myself but it was gonna be a wet and dirty job. might do that when the weather dries up a bit

The Continental Op

Digging it out to create a pond is a great idea but I'd warn you that you do need to be prepared to do some maintenance which may cost. As an example the wild ponds I've looked after have needed a bit of cleaning up occasionally and some weeds removing. Just so you can maintain a view of it you might need a strimmer. I'd get a machine in for a couple of hours. Ask around maybe a local farmer has a JCB and will do a cash job and most rural areas have a contractor that would do the job on an hourly rate. Make it bigger than needed because once you have a pond all a pond seems to want to do is fill itself in again and become part of the field.

magicbastarder

it's possible it once was a pond and got filled in; you might even be able to check on the old OS maps.

looksee

I don't suppose its any way down hill of your septic tank/water treatment system?

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478181#Comment_120478181

That normally produces very obviously green grass ;-)

looksee

A decent water treatment system should only be producing (relatively) clean water. Agree that a septic tank could be fertilizing the landscape!

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477674#Comment_120477674

what are old os maps?!

denismc

OS = ordanance survey

Rows Grower

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478595#Comment_120478595

Ordinance Survey maps from days gone by.

The Continental Op

Look here https://webapps.geohive.ie/mapviewer/index.html then pick the 25 inch map after finding it by clicking the icon near the top right with 4 squares in it.

Edit> You can even put in your eircode, then with the 25 inch map keep zooming in to get the highest resolution. A small pond may only show up as an outline with nothing saying its a pond. There's one near me that no longer exists and on the 25 inch map all you can see is the outline (map is B/W) but on the 6 inch coloured map the old pond area is coloured blue.

techman1

Maybe the site for the house was filled in or raised up , maybe the house has interfered with the natural drainage of the field. I would just leave well enough alone or else put in a drainage shore, a narrow drain with drainage pipe filled in with small stones to a drain if that is possible. I agree with another poster, trying to dig a pond could turn into an unsightly eyesore full of stagnant water and weeds beside a possibly unsightly rough spoil heap also full of weeds

Whereas now you have a pleasant green field that occasionally has a pond of water , is that so bad?

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478676#Comment_120478676

Bah Humbug.

A natural wet area is an excellent opportunity to create a pond and/or bog garden. There are plenty of amazing plants that could be grown which wouldn't survive elsewhere, i would love to have one.

looksee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478644#Comment_120478644

Those old maps on geohive can keep me entertained for hours! Sadly my current house site has some indeterminate splodges that could be anything and no way of figuring them out (I suspect they are sheds).

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478644#Comment_120478644

yeah, they won't necessarily state a pond, but in certain cases they do.

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120477674#Comment_120477674

interesting because it looks like there was once a well nearby - could that account for it?

can anyone tell me if the 'well' in this map is located beside the circle or where the line is pointing to?

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478181#Comment_120478181

nope but there sewage does come out in the same field, albeit far away

These OS maps are incredible guys

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479316#Comment_120479316

The circle is the well, it is indeed interesting though as there could be a spring there

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479362#Comment_120479362

its literally right where the wet spot is. is there anything i can or should be doing about this?

The Continental Op

Map makers a notable for getting small details wrong locations, heights, positions spot on but a well could be anything they think is used to provide water to a house. You never know if they were told it was a well or if they thought it might be a well. Could even be a dew pond. If the shape suggests a dw pond and you want to keep then don't put a machine on it. Often they would be clay lined to hold water and machine work would remove that.

Anyway from you arm chair it might be worth looking at some more maps before putting your wellies on. This time geological maps https://dcenr.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.htm You'll have to work that out for yourself but you can get info on soil permeability in the area and might find some more info on your area.

I think what I'd do is probe the "well" with a long steel rod to see if you can find any shape to it then I'd go along the slope about 10 yards to a dry spot at the same height as the top of the well then dig a test pit. Go down as far as you can and see what the sub soil is like and if you hole fills with water. If it doesn't fill with water we are nearer to saying you have a spring or dew pond as if its ground water collecting your hole will fill quite quickly even as you dig it. Next for me would be to dig a small hole in the middle of the well and see if I could pump it dry. If it takes a lot to pump out and refills quickly you could be on a spring line. If you get the water down a bit in a spring then the water coming in can be quite obvious as it comes up clean though the mud.

Furze99

I'm confused! Weren't you looking for advice on garden size when buying a house recently? But now you have one here with land? Or maybe this wet area is adjacent to where you now live (with no garden) but on a neighbours land? If latter, you can't do anything with it without permission I'd think. Looking at OS map that is most likely a natural spring feeding water to those drains. May well have been used for domestic and/or farm use in the past - think buckets or maybe a pipe or drain. If you dig it out, you might well find some sort of stone surround that's been grassed over. On that basis, you or landowner will have a lot of trouble moving a spring as water likes to do it's own thing. Can be done with digging and piping away but far better to utilise it as a small wet land area.

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480219#Comment_120480219

Hi Furze, the land im talking about here is my parents place. can you explain to me where the drains are on the map? are they the lines. those lines today correspond to boundaries between fields

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480145#Comment_120480145

thanks the continental, looking at those maps it seems they are subscrition? i have a rough idea of the soil around my area but need to explore further id say

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480249#Comment_120480249

I had no problem looking at any of the maps, maybe start here then click on the map view link. Looking around my own area shows up very general information but you never know what you might uncover.

Just realised if you tick the box for Groundwater Data Viewer then you can click inside any of the circles that show up for more info. In theory you should find a ring on the map around your well with a bit of data that might include at least include a date?

Another one to check in case you have a historic well is the Historic Environment Viewer - might show up something interesting around the farm?

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480235#Comment_120480235

Looking at your map extract, I'd think the water from the spring drained north to the where the double line is and then west along this to the road. Crossing same, running parallel a bit then turning north west. The dotted line symbol looks like townland boundary but hard to tell from small extract. It's likely the water still goes this way, unless there has been drainage work done. Even then it's hard to move where water wants to go. Folklore is full of stories about wells/ springs and moving or failing to move them/ drying them up etc.

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120482442#Comment_120482442

where the double line is, there is still a stream there today (just realising i should have mentioned this). Does that help in any respect – to figure out source of water. I need to look and see which way its flowing next time.

You see if you follow the double line north there is a roughly oval/rectangular thing – any idea what this is?

You are correct that the dotted line is a townland boundary

The Continental Op

I would doubt there is a connection between the stream and the well if the well was used for drinking water. The reason being people used to be quite fussy about their water and get good tasting clean water from a well or spring. There is a river 25m from our house but traditionally the best drinking water locally was always collected way up the hill from a spring.

That well is near enough the house to have been very convenient for drinking water although you have to consider that it could have been used for live stock but if you have a stream that would be good enough for stock?

If you probe it you might find a circle of stones that originally lined the well. If you do there are some easy techniques for opening it up again - the right pump to pump out muddy water and another water source to make more mud. You pump water in to stir up and loosen the mud then pump it out with a diaphragm pump. I've cleaned out 20ft deep wells that way - used to have a couple in a garden I worked in that had been filled in.

If its a spring you might still have some stone work to make a dipping basin to get water from but because there would be a flow of water there would have been an over flow on the lower side so you weren't stood in mud to get your water.

This might be a nice clean spring that when mains water came along the well was left to the cattle who turned the area back into a muddy bit of the field. I can see it now spalpeen bottled spring water :-)

Furze99

Water rising from a spring has to go somewhere, if not dissipating into the field then originally 'piped' northwards towards the drain. There are some extraordinary old built drains / waterlines particularly in Leinster & Munster. It wasn't uncommon for a water supply to be brought a half mile and more across the slopes to supply a farm yard/ house etc. When in use they were regularly maintained, obviously later when bore wells were put in, they got abandoned and grown over. Neighbour here turned up one in a field that had been forgotten about.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120483505#Comment_120483505

Think you're spot on here, the line from the well to the stream was probably the original drain and could well be the source for the stream itself. Op should be able to see water draining into the stream at this point. Interestingly it also looks like the stream was deliberately directed northwards to the oval area which could have been a pond or even bathing area, while also directed west towards the road and onwards.

Op are there any references to a spa or well in the local placenames? Fascinating stuff all round.

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120482736#Comment_120482736

spalpeen bottled water definitely has a good ring to it haha

aside from general interest (and it is of interest) is there any "advantage" to having an old well on your property, in an age of modern water sources?

The stream lies as a boundary between two fields by different owners and so is behind a fence on both sides. I am not sure if this is the reason it was never left for stock or if it is more of a water quality issue.

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120483833#Comment_120483833

interesting, next time i am down i will need to look into the stream again and see if threre is a sign where the water is coming from and where it's going. As far as I can see, the placenames share no obvious connection to water or wells or springs but its hard to say as some of them don't have a known meaning in irish – nothing obvious anyway, no tobars or uisces

The Continental Op

The advantage of spring water is that it can be much nicer to drink than tap water. Our tap water is crap so I'd welcome a spring. Anyone on mains water faces drinking all the crappy sediment that builds up in the pipes from dead organisms killed by chlorine and thats not some old wives tale. Thats not to say that every spring is perfect some are probably not very good for you but worth investigating.

I'd be surprised if its been fenced off that there is not more to it than a muddy area of field if you start to clean it out. It may be fenced off because there was some depth to the spring and they don't want stock stuck in there.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120485854#Comment_120485854

I used to live next to an old house in the UK called Spring field. Guess what the area was full of springs and the cellar of our house (also old) used to flood.

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120485878#Comment_120485878

didnt get its name for nothing. looking forward to having a dig around that area

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120490890#Comment_120490890

Please let us know how you get on and don't forget a pictures says a thousand words ;-)

If you are not sure if its actually running water then if you make a hole in different spots with a long fencing bar (don't smash it in and damage anything below) you should see clear running water rise to the surface from the hole - I'm assuming its just a muddy mess.