Horse shoe tile drains

ZXR17

Member
Location
South Dorset
What age would a drainage system be using horse shoe tile drain laterals running into a stone headland drain ?
I have just dug into a system as above and was surprised to find the horse shoe drains and even more surprised that they fed into a stone drain.
The drains are virtually blocked solid where they meet the stone drain but after digging back for a few metres they start to clear and would flow a fair bit of water. The drains are about 9 metres apart.
From the two drains I have dug up so far it would appear that if I dug along the stone drain I could possibly get the system working well again .
What the best approach ?
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I think in this area they were laid by French prisoners of war so early 1800's. We redrained here in the 1970's. The neighbour still runs the old horseshoe system but it seems to require a fair bit of maintenance and isn't really deep enough to allow deeper subsoiling. And I have had to repair subsoiler damage there many a day.

Perhaps put a new Plastic header in if the horseshoe laterals really are OK. The stone drain is mostly likely sedimented up.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Lot of drains are medieval or even earlier.
A lot of drainage was done by prisoners of war in napoleons era.
Stone drains pre date everything else and still work perfectly.
I’ve found some beauties over the years in great condition.
Many horseshoe pipes were laid on a slate to create a bottom

That would make sense in Wales. Here we have fired clay bottoms. I think many clay products such as pantiles for our roofs came over from Holland as they made good ballast for the trading ships. We only started to see slate when the railways arrived in the the 1840's here. Fascinating how geology and transport influenced and changed materials used.
 
I found a chapter about it in "The Industrial Archaeology of Farming in England and Wales" by Nigel Harvey.
"The tilepipe derives its curious name from the semi-circular or crescent shape, similar to that of the familiar ridge tile, of the early tiles used to form underground culverts.Drains of such tiles were first laid in the late 18th century..The early 19th century saw the local development and use of a variety of such tiles, then generally called horseshoe tiles,which were sometimes laid directly on the soil at the bottom of the trench, sometimes on a flat tile known as a sole. For a generation they were all handmade, but by the 1840s various forms of tilemaking machine were extruding different sorts of tile, including a horseshoe combined with a sole in a prefabricated unit. A variation occaisionally used was the hollowed drainage brick, sometimes , like horseshoe tiles, laid together to form a pipe.
The ancestors of modern drainage pipes appeared at the end of the 18th century. But such pipes were not widely used until their manufacture was mechanized and cheap, mass-produced ,extruded pipes replaced those made individually by wrapping clay around a mandril. The significant date in this change was 1845, when Thomas Scragg was awarded the prize offered by the RASE for the best machine for making cylindrical tilepipes.The new pipes performed well and won such rapid acceptance that by 1870 they had in large measure superseded the tile and sole."
 
A bit more: " A few of these tilepipes were dated or stamped with a local or estate crest by the brickyards which manufactured them, but it is difficult to establish either date or provenance very exactly in the absence of such exceptional markings.For one thing, tilepipes are seldom standardized. Throughout the Hanoverian period, they were made locally in a multitude of brickyards, often estate brickyards, and they vary immensely in design. For another, drainage practice was equally localised and the rate of change from one type to another depended on the decisions of individual landowners, farmers and drainers. Further, there is little documentary evidence on field schemes, for most of the original maps have perished. Nevertheless there are certain clues and probabilities which can help to establish probable dating.
In general, horseshoe tiles and handmade pipes date from the late 18th, or first half of the 19th century.In particular, pipes marked "DRAIN" date from between 1826 and 1850, for a tax which was levied on all bricks and tiles between 1784 and 1850 was amended in 1826 to exempt tiles made "for the sole purpose of draining marshy land" provided they were thus marked" in so plain and distict a manner that the same may be easily and distinctly legible to any officer of the Excise." Pipes of 1" diameter, the smallest used, can also be dated within two or three decades for they provide an interesting relic of technical failure. They were produced in the belief that a small bore would increase the speed of the water flowing through them and so keep them clear.Unfortunately, the engineers had underestimated the drag factor, which slowed the movement of the water and therefore increased the rate of accumulation of silt until the pipes choked.The period when these "pencil pipes " were used, therefore , was short from the 1840s to the 1870s when they were finally abandoned."
 

Kevtherev

Member
Location
Welshpool Powys
IMG_0773.JPG

Pic off net
 

sahara

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Somerset
Resurrecting this thread.

We have quite a lot of the horse shoe drains and have just used up all of our spares. Does any one have any that they want to part with or know where I could get some. Local reclamation yard has drawn a blank so far.

Many thanks.
 

Kidds

Member
Horticulture
Resurrecting this thread.

We have quite a lot of the horse shoe drains and have just used up all of our spares. Does any one have any that they want to part with or know where I could get some. Local reclamation yard has drawn a blank so far.

Many thanks.
I have got some, will have to have a look tomorrow.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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