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I have been told that there is a well in my back yard. However it is a very long yard. I have found a few possible shallow spots that I plan to examine. An old relative from the country suggested using diviners to locate the well. Does anyone have advice/experince of this?
regards Neilos

You could try dowsing for the well yourself. Cut up a wire coathanger and away you go!

Lots of information (of variable quality!) on Yootube.

Forget all that mumbo jumbo,send your partner off on a fortnights holiday,then anonmously ring crimestoppers,suggesting you've done away with Him/Her,and with a bit of luck by the time they get back they'll have a nice tan,and you'll have had your garden dug up.

SusieGee wrote: Give it a go it works!

Not necessarily for everyone
When we first moved here we contacted the well borer who sent his dad to locate the best place to bore.
He walked up and down and pinpointed the spot where there was plenty of water (so he said). When he had gone I tried it myself and nothing ... tried bent wires, twigs and a pendulum, not a twitch.

Needless to say when the boring rig came, they drilled down 60 feet straight into an underground river, but what amazed me was he spent about half an hour manoeuvring the huge rig so that he drilled exactly through the peg his dad had left, not even a couple of inches out.
So yeah, it does work for some people.

Diving works 100%, how it works and whether you can do it, is another matter altogether.

But Jerry's idea is equally appealing.

Diving works 100%, how it works and whether you can do it, is another matter altogether.

But Jerry's idea is equally appealing.

boboff wrote:Diving works 100%, how it works and whether you can do it, is another matter altogether.

But Jerry's idea is equally appealing.

Need to dig the hole first before can dive into it!

Have a look at your garden on Google Earth. Use the roll-back feature to find an image taken on a dry summer, and look to see if you can make out any parch marks where the turf lies over the cap of the well.

Otherwise, if it's been capped you should be able to probe with a metal rod to try and find the concrete or slab cap.

Hey boboff you're a div

Yep!

Does Englandceicetsrshire have an equivalent of www.nls.uk? If so, you might well find the well marked on an old map. At least it would give you an indication of where to start dousing.

The obvious solution (after old jerry's excelent one) is to randomly dig holes till you find it.

Srsly though the well may have metal fixtures so a metal detector may be of use

Odsox wrote:

SusieGee wrote: Give it a go it works!

Not necessarily for everyone
When we first moved here we contacted the well borer who sent his dad to locate the best place to bore.
He walked up and down and pinpointed the spot where there was plenty of water (so he said). When he had gone I tried it myself and nothing ... tried bent wires, twigs and a pendulum, not a twitch.

Needless to say when the boring rig came, they drilled down 60 feet straight into an underground river, but what amazed me was he spent about half an hour manoeuvring the huge rig so that he drilled exactly through the peg his dad had left, not even a couple of inches out.
So yeah, it does work for some people.

Chances are that there's a horizontal fissure... Could be that you could sink a well anywhere and hit water.

gregorach wrote:Chances are that there's a horizontal fissure... Could be that you could sink a well anywhere and hit water.

Possibly, but no way of really knowing without drilling 60 foot holes in random places all over my property.

I would point out though that the place the diviner "chose" was just about the worst place on my land to manoeuvre a drilling rig.