Thread: Orange clay pipe in the garden of the new build property

Hi all,

Thank you for having me - I started digging our new pond and have hit an orange clay pipe.
I know all drainage on our property is using orange 110mm plastic pipe so was quite surprised to find this one just where I decided to dig a pond (please see photos).
Any idea what it's for and whether I need to try and fix it somehow or can get rid of the section that's in the way - I wonder if it's some old drainage that was left there, although from what I know, before our estate was built there were just fields here and the property was built in 2018.

Any help would be much appreciated as I'm a bit stuck, not sure what to do with it.

I don’t know where you are but if you’re in a rural area It could be a land drain.
I came across one when doing my extension, and I can guarantee no one will take responsibility for it. Whether it’s live or redundant who knows.

Thank you Martin59 - I am in the rural area - small village and the property is on the outskirts of it - beyond us are only two other new builds and then just fields.

I would say it’s a land drain then. The problem is finding out if it’s still in use or not.
With the one I had, it was still in use so had to reroute it around the extension.

I bought endoscope inspection camera, which arrives tomorrow so I’ll see how far the pipe goes.


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Some of these pipes can be a few hundred metres long from what I’ve been told. The only way to know if it is still in use is to wait until you get a good downpour of rain and see if water comes out of it as the water runs off the fields. Shouldn’t have to wait long with the way the whether is at the moment.

I secretly hope the pipe has collapsed somewhere along the way and no more water goes through - will know more tomorrow hopefully.


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Good luck.
Keep us update.

These old clay foot long pipes are old land drains. They are not removed prior to housing developement and are probably 200yrs old. Found one digging my pond. The vast majority are no longer maintained even on agricultural land due the the effort of rodding them out every few years.

Is this pipe at the full depth of your pond, or were you hoping to dig deeper?

I was hoping to dig deeper and managed to, but the left the pipe where it was and created a drop deeper next to it. Where the pipe is I now have a deeper shelf.


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