Penelope Anderson
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Garden drainage.Help urgently needed for my son's small garden in north London. Half of it is waterlogged. and the other half so dry the earth is cracking. He has dug a bore hole three feet deep in the waterlogged half and filled it with gravel but it just filled right up again and overflowed, and the grass is a bog. Why should it stop half way and become dry? They are not at the top of a hill - or maybe a spring rises there? Any advice gratefully received.
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Northern_Lad
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I'd recommend stripping off all the turf, removing about 4"-6" of whatever's below, and laying a course of gravel and replacing the turf.
That should allow any excess water to drain away, or at least level out.
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tahir
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Change in geology? Most of ours is sand/clay with gravel but within it thetre are patches of almost pure clay and almost pure gravel.
I'd dig a foot down to see what the soils like like.
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gil
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What's in the next door gardens ???
Is this a new place they've moved to ? Or a new phenomenon ?
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Lozzie
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Should you ask local water board to investigate? Might it be run-off from a leak somewhere else? North Londond has so much ancient (well, Victorian) infrastructure..?
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Penelope Anderson
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Good idea Lozzie, I'll email him now. And thanks for replies so far. He needs help. They have been there for six years. One problem is 3 small kids who like jumping in water!
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dougal
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North London has lots of slopes.
Cracking sounds like clay.
So, ... it could be a spring, I suppose.
There may be all sorts of other things going on. The dry bit might have an air raid shelter underneath...
On clay, you'll only get drainage if you can channel the water *away*. Digging a 'soak-away' won't help much if the water can't soak out of the 'soak-away'. So making a channel for the water to flow along, so that it can escape, and then maybe backfilling the channel sand and gravel... But you must give it a way *out*, since it doesn't want to go downwards
Perhaps he should get a little pump, a tank and some pipe? He could be at least flushing the loo with his 'bonus' water.
Or else make a bog-garden...
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Gervase
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Which bit of North London? I was born and raised in Crouch End, and over the years spent many an hour peering into holes in the ground there - there's an awful lot of clay and quite a few spits of gravel marking old water courses below ground level.
See if they can borrow or hire an augur and take a sample of what's down there - they only need to go two or three feet down.
If drainage is really bad, they will need to strip the turf and put in some land drain pipe in geotex and pea-gravel - and have somewhere for the water to go; a sump or gravel soakaway would be ideal.
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dpack
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i have done lots of digging in london .
as above pipes .
as above a spring 
as above an underground structure .
as above explore it and solve or exploit it 
at least you are not asking why his house is sliding down honeywell rd in sw london 
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