Draining the Landscape: Part Two

Let’s not waste any time summarizing the last part of this article, shall we, and just get straight on with it? I don’t believe in unnecessary cruelty, especially if it’s self-inflicted. Anyhow, farmers couldn’t always afford tile pipes so instead they sometimes made do with turf blocks. (Go and look them up if you’ve forgotten all that stuff we wrote some time back about them already.)
Laying ‘tile pipes’ required another specially designed tool. It was known as a ‘Pipe Layer’. It consisted of a long handle with a large metal hook on the end. (Abu Hamza would have been proud.) In fact, the design was so obvious and simple, I can’t even be bothered drawing one up. Let’s just say that the hook was inserted into the pipe and then the pipe was placed in the narrow trench.
The pipes themselves were generally laid out in a ‘Herring Bone’ fashion (as demonstrated below).

And before anybody complains, I don’t know whether the pipes ought to be overlapping or not. This was the way they were laid out for me to copy, all right, so let’s leave it at that.
The smaller pipes, apparently, gathered the water from the field and drained it into the larger pipes, which in turn drained out into the dyke.

MAINTAINING THE DRAIN

You might have noticed that there’s no hilarious pun in that particular subheading. That’s because I’m losing the will to live.
Once all the pipes were in place and the soil replaced, all that needed to be done was to keep the drains in working order. ‘Drain Rods’ came in handy at this point. Drain rods could interlock and be extended to almost any length. A number of add-ons were also available.
The first of these was known as the ‘Wheel’ (see illustration), for what I can only hope, for the sake of my reader’s intelligence, will be blatantly obvious reasons. The wheel not only helped to feed the rod through the narrow drains but also dealt with the majority of blockages by simply battering into them. Usually a good hard crack would break down stubborn soil that was clinging to the walls.


In situations where the ‘Wheel’ was ineffective the ‘Bullet’ (yes…I’ve just had another look at that illustration and feel it necessary to forestall any possibly x-rated comments) stood a better chance of working. Acting in a similar manner to a harpoon, the ‘Bullet’ would pierce the blockage and drag it free. (It’s enough to make your eyes water, isn’t it?)


A simple scouring tool was the ‘Flu Brush’ (illustrated below), also effective for removing blockages and resembling a sawn-off loo brush.


Incidentally, I’ve no idea how accurate the colour scheme is for these illustrations. I drew the pictures up years ago and just decided to colour them in to make this article a bit more interesting. (Leaving them out altogether, along with the words, would probably have been a better idea.)
If none of the attachments just mentioned were successful then the ‘Plunger’ (see drawing etc.) could be used.
‘Drain Plunger’s acted in much the same manner as common household plungers. A simple ‘pumping’ action was generally enough to create a vacuum in the pipe and eventually, under the pressure, the blockage would work itself loose.


One other handy attachment was the chimney sweep’s brush. Although, obviously, the sweep’s brush hadn’t been designed for field drains it still came in useful for their day-to-day maintenance.
So, there you have it -- the complete A-Z of Victorian tile drainage. (Somebody shoot me!) Now you’ll be able to impress all your mates down the pub.