i thought i would share these pictures from the summer just gone. the potted history is that we live in an old farm workers cottage, its been modernised over the years but my inroads to the history put it around 1850 build date.
anyway on the back of the house was a 1980s timber shack which we planned on replacing with a new timber shack, followed by rebranding to "utility room". the old shack was pulled down (or rather assisted gravity) in a day and the next job was to break up the concrete slab on which it sat. that ended up being a nightmare because it was inexplicably reinforced concrete (although found out why later) but when breaking the slab at the furthest edge from the house it unearthed a big flag stone (still none the wiser, just thought it was spoil) so then the pneumatic drill (or pom pom as granddad used to call it) was sent to work on the flagstone. the corner broke off and a black hole appeared, followed by a pause and a SPLOOOODOOOOSSH. oh sheet !
school boy excitement kicks in, head full of war time air raid shelters or discovering the staff of ra. the flagstone was levered off, sadly no gasp of air or moving floor...
peered into the hole and saw water, crystal clean water actually, the natural assumption was cess pit but there was no sign of mr hanky!
leaning in the hole (its about 9 or 10 feet deep, bell shaped and about the same wide) its beautifully rendered inside and can see its brick behind that.
looking to one side there was a salt glazed pipe which came from the direction of the house
then on the garden side the remains of an old lead pipe (looks sliced off) which runs down vertically, then dog legs horizontally along the bottom of the floor to the middle of the dome
after a bit of googling i found out they are called water cisterns and wouldve collected rain water from guttering round the house (hence the salt glaze inlet) then it wouldve had a hand pump above ground in the back yard to draw the water up for gardening, cooking and washing. pretty cool really and very well preserved, rain water harvesting is made out to be some kind of new ecological solution/invention :rolleyes:
pump wouldve been this sort of thing
here you can see an overflow, basically a missing brick which goes to a soak away
anyway on the back of the house was a 1980s timber shack which we planned on replacing with a new timber shack, followed by rebranding to "utility room". the old shack was pulled down (or rather assisted gravity) in a day and the next job was to break up the concrete slab on which it sat. that ended up being a nightmare because it was inexplicably reinforced concrete (although found out why later) but when breaking the slab at the furthest edge from the house it unearthed a big flag stone (still none the wiser, just thought it was spoil) so then the pneumatic drill (or pom pom as granddad used to call it) was sent to work on the flagstone. the corner broke off and a black hole appeared, followed by a pause and a SPLOOOODOOOOSSH. oh sheet !
school boy excitement kicks in, head full of war time air raid shelters or discovering the staff of ra. the flagstone was levered off, sadly no gasp of air or moving floor...
peered into the hole and saw water, crystal clean water actually, the natural assumption was cess pit but there was no sign of mr hanky!
leaning in the hole (its about 9 or 10 feet deep, bell shaped and about the same wide) its beautifully rendered inside and can see its brick behind that.
looking to one side there was a salt glazed pipe which came from the direction of the house
then on the garden side the remains of an old lead pipe (looks sliced off) which runs down vertically, then dog legs horizontally along the bottom of the floor to the middle of the dome
after a bit of googling i found out they are called water cisterns and wouldve collected rain water from guttering round the house (hence the salt glaze inlet) then it wouldve had a hand pump above ground in the back yard to draw the water up for gardening, cooking and washing. pretty cool really and very well preserved, rain water harvesting is made out to be some kind of new ecological solution/invention :rolleyes:
pump wouldve been this sort of thing
here you can see an overflow, basically a missing brick which goes to a soak away
