The house hasn’t fallen down yet and I bet the well was there first.
Ignore any advice based on modern standards. They are arse covering, just in case ideas.
Don’t tell anyone. Tidy it up and temporarily cap it. It may come in useful.
Measure its depth, maybe have the water tested but don’t say where it is coming from. Might be drinkable.
If nothing else it might be good when hose pipe bans set in or it could reduce a water bill if you have a meter.

Can I just be the first to say tie a brick or stone onto a piece of string to measure the depth. Didn’t think of that did you OP, eh?

Maybe he didn’t but several others have…

Just make sure you use a piece of string which is long enough to reach the bottom.

How long is that, you ask?

Could be your passport to free hot water and heating for life. (or potentially even getting paid by the government to heat your house..)

Do we know how deep it is yet? Bit of string… Half-brick… Etc?

I MUST KNOW HOW DEEP IT IS

So I finally got round to tying a brick to some rope. The water is 4 metres deep and the whole thing is 5 metres down from the manhole. The water is about 0.6 metres down from the mouth of the hole which is about 1.8 metres across. It’ll take a lot of filling if that’s what I decide to do. It felt sludgy at the bottom when the brick hit. I think that metal pole is a support for the cap, but it may be a pipe. If it was a septic tank i would have expected to see a run off pipe near the top, but I cant see any holes/pipes in the walls. They may be blocked and below the surface though.

The house is brick/early concrete block cavity wall but the hole seems to be lined with stone, so may pre date the current house.

Any more ideas?

This thread needs pictures:

get a pump from a well known screw depot, empty well and then take it back and get a refund, if the well doesnt refill.

Next step:
http://uncrate.com/stuff/trident-underwater-drone/

Did the horse fall in?

i was expecting to see a soakaway but no

don’t you love 1930’s concrete

If you do pump it empty, be aware of the risks associated with any gases that may collect down there before venturing down with a ladder.

Plenty of unwanted pet budgies on Gumtree

Plenty of unwanted pet budgies on Gumtree

..use a hamster

Might be worth having a look at https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/ – Wells are sometimes marked on the old OS maps. If that website doesn’t work I’ll happily look it up for you on an academic site.

<woof>

What’s that girl?

<woof>

porkscratching’s fallen down the well?

<woof>

Friends of mine have one in the living room as does a pub nearby so make a feature of it and don’t worry

Looks drinkable to me.

Its a known fact that lots of wells are inhabited by witches so just beware of any upside down horseshoes nearby. For real.

It’s probably almost 100% possible that that is a portal into another dimension. If you don’t find beings looking like they are made of liquid mercury climbing out of the portal in the next day or two I’ll eat my hat.

Outside chance it’s a well that’s been concreted over.

You could just take my approach, put the manhole cover back on and forget all about it?

Saves building a new patio when a family member (or two) displeases you…….

[url=https://flic.kr/p/A52PRb]THE-WELL[/url] by SGMTB, on Flickr

@redthunder – I’ll print that off and stick it up on the kid’s bedroom wall – should help them sleep.

Might pop by the church for some holy water on the way home.

@ porkscratching

lol… if want a high res version just let me know.

That does indeed look like an old well. The metal ‘pole’ is very likely to be the old draw pipe.

What you want to do with it is up to you. It’s yours. There are no rules or regulations that state you have to report it to anyone. I bang on people’s doors fairly often looking for olds wells, as lovewookie says, it allows a risk assessment of vulnerable receptors to be made if there has been a pollution incident nearby.

A shaft well like that is likely to be fed from the strata that it’s sunk into rather than rainwater infiltration, but it does rather depend on your locality. Without knowing your precise location I can’t comment on the geology, but it’s easy enough to find out about that stuff online.

I’d be careful about drawing conclusions of water table levels from well water levels too. There’s not always a correlation, especially in interbedded sedimentary strata.

It’s probably almost 100% possible that that is a portal into another dimension

If you see a green glow at the bottom then that will confirm it, jump in and you will end up being squeezed out of the crack in WYSIWYG’ss wall.
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/luminescent-crack-in-wall

Oooh that’s a big one.

Scienceofficer wins the most actual factual response of the day award surely!