Monthly Update - February 2025
One of the more successful things I did when managing Rushall Farm was to put a borehole in. Our main water supply wandered down from Rotten Row across the Pang and Frogmore Farm to Back Lane. With miles of pipework supplying far off fields we were forever in pursuit of leaks, followed by frequent and painful bills from Thames Water. I became quite good at finding water pipes, using wire from a coat hanger when a soggy patch appeared in a field. Rushall Manor had always been a hotspot, with clear fresh water emerging, and yet no signs of plastic or caste iron pipe. I later learned from Dick Greenaway that sites like Rushall Manor were probably first settled 10,000 years ago, based on the pure spring water that consistently sprung from the earth.
Our well is 40 metres deep into the chalk below, giving us water for just the cost of electricity, the annual maintenance, and quality testing by West Berks. It has been a dream, except when the power goes off! Then the pump stops. Last week the pump from the storage tank packed up. Well, after 18 years that is pretty good. We coped with three days before a temporary pump could be fitted, but it will be a month before we are back to normal. Now here is the problem; it was a crisis for us when we turned on the tap and nothing came out, let alone for Steve with 100 plus big, thirsty cattle. And yet we have to wrestle with the daily news that what we take as our right is not the privilege extended to so many throughout the world.
Land at Rushall Farm is often described as the sort which needs “a shower of rain every day and a shower of muck on Sundays.” The flat gravel tops cover massive amounts of clay, with pockets of sand, going to deep alluvial soils by the river. When it rains the water pours into sink holes which feed into the sponge-like chalk which is located under the clay. Here the water is stored to supply the whole area from the pumping station above Bradfield. Children love going to the swallow hole in the middle of the woods and are “lost in wonder, love and praise,” watching, and messing about as the water disappears down this giant plughole. And asking the question; “where does it really go?” and nobody actually knows.