Seem to have hit bedrock while digging up border. Drill?

[NewspaperTaxis]

I've been digging what amounts to a long trench, only a foot or so deep. along one garden border - the mud was clay really and in recent wet weather this became so obvious I thought, okay, as this is the first time I'm going to be painting nice things here for decades, I may as well get it all out, replace it with decent soil.
However... at the far end it becomes clear I can't hack at it any more, the pick axe bounces back! I doubt it is some old Roman patio (!) but it's clear it's the reason that part of the garden gets badly flooded in rainy season - yes the soil is clay but also the rainwater just can't go anywhere, it won't sink through the earth because of this long hard rock or sandstone. It may even extend under the lawn for part of it, another reason why that would be flooded.
My question is - is it normal to get anyone to take a drill to this bed? Do professional gardeners do this? It feels odd to just put nice soil on top of all this knowing that the key problem for the flooding of the garden will still be there.
Obviously I don't own a pneumatic drill.

Is it definitely one piece? this is giving me flashbacks to sorting out my front garden when someone had buried the curb stones and the old drive in it - some of them were massive. It was a horrible horrible job, nearly gave up. Glad I didn’t though, as I would have been very limited by the foot of soil that’s was on top.

Earth’s crust is only 50miles deep!

I take your point, but I was thinking of rocks in strata. But more likely as PP said above a boulder, which could be house sized

This seems to be it. The water evaporated after a day and I hacked again at it and while it sometimes bounces back, it's not a boulder as such, just a lot of orange rocks amongst what looks like sandstone. Thing is, there seems to be no end to it and it's very hard to shift. You could see it as a load of gravel and rocks just chucked there decades ago.

However, things have got a bit Quartermast and the Pit....

There is now a pool of water in the trench. What happened was, I hacked away at it and got a bit lower. After 10 mins or so, that area started to fill up a bit - you can see in the picture, though it doesn't do it justice. Over night, it was even worse. Now, it hadn't been raining. It's been sunny this week anyway. So where did that water come from? Going by my ill-advised comment about bedrock earlier, I hesitate to say it's the water table? Or could it be an underwater spring? Do such things exist outside books!?

I thought the flooding that periodically occurred in that part of the lawn and garden came from the fact that when it rained, it couldn't find anyway of sinking into the earth because of non-porous soil/clay and rock. But this water just emerged from the ground!

Moving up the newly dug trench, it does not have any water in it at all, no puddles! However, on closer inspection it is not dug as deep. When I dug a bit so it was as deep, lo and behold a puddle water.

There is also a very odd large branch in that watery trench. It may be from a nearby oak tree and I hesitate to hack into it for that reason. The other reason is is it looked like no branch I've ever seen, almost like it was rubber. However, it can't be anything like a rubbery pipe. Okay, it can't be, but it doesn't feel like a root. This makes me sound nuts but I've found the whole thing a bit unnerving! I've dug away at other parts of the garden and never had this before - where you dig a ditch and it fills up with water from the ground!

It is hard to tell if it is groundwater table but it does look like it. And possibly why they put soil [and compacted it] there to raise the soil level.

My suggestion as before is to put it all back and grow in raised beds. You can't fight the water table.

Have you hit hoggin put in as foundations (or a temporary access road) for something in the past? If the hoggin is backfilling a trench dug through clay then the trench may be acting as an underground sump/pond and the water can't drain/is very slow to drain and pools there as an elevated water table.

I haven't heard the word hoggin in decades!

I used to spend half my working day trying to stop people saying it...and now I can't remember why.

I think a spring is likely too.

Have a read of this
eehe.org.uk/?p=64347#:~:text=The%20geological%20strata%20are%20gravel,pits%20close%20to%20the%20town.
if you can work out where your house is relative to these descriptions you may have the "Earth Bourne"

that may be a complete red herring by the way!

Can you make a lovely swale OP? I’m not 100% sure what one is or how you make one, but I’m sure they’re a watery ditch of some sort.

It may be a red herring as you say - but, erm, it does seem uncanny. We are located on the map of Epsom you provide nr Epsom Common, so it fits the description. Should also have said - and this is kinda relevant! - there is a stream at the end of our garden. Eventually that does flow into the Hogsmill a couple of miles away in Ewell.

The so-called Earth Bourne is also linked to this time of year, as it says it comes along after Christmas.

I was chatting to a next-door neighbour who talked about how heavy rainfall would flood his greenhouse - so he installed a subterranean pipe to drain the surplus surface water into the stream, and he was talking about how I could have a go at this to stop the garden flooding during heavy rainfall. Should add however that the simple clay round flowerbed I have in the lawn also floods if given half a chance and I doubt that's on a spring.

Dunno - what do I do with this spring? Assuming that's what it is? Or have I dug up something that should be left alone.

All I wanted to do was plant a few daffodil bulbs! Couldn't I just chuck a load of earth in the ditch with compost and revert to plan A or will that mess something up? Or if it's a spring or Earth Bourne - have to look at this, is this why the venue in Ewell is called Bourne Hall? - should I be milking it or taking advantage of it in some way?

Rediscover the healing properties of Epsom Salts you mean?

We are building an extension and have hit a spring. I have taken careful note of where it is, for personal use come the zombie apocalypse. But for now we have put in a French drain and foundation flooding problem is solved.

Sorry for the dummass question, but what are you actually trying to achieve? What's the problem?

All I wanted to do was plant a few daffodil bulbs! Couldn't I just chuck a load of earth in the ditch with compost and revert to plan A or will that mess something up?

Yes, as I said earlier, you can just throw some topsoil on and plant your bulbs.

Or make a raised bed.

If it is too wet they will rot so at least you will know you can't plant anything there in the future.

It's a few bulbs. Put them in pots. Move on.

Fair enough, this thread has mutated. Originally it was 'I've hit a huge boulder, how do I get rid of it?' and now I've unearthed some Earth Bourne, a long-lost Epsom phenomenon, only this afternoon I had visions of summer parties with togas and the invitation to sup from a magical well with restorative powers.

It does feel odd chucking earth on to this again, maybe the stone and gravel was meant to be there? Maybe I will install a 'French' pipe - how is that different to an English one - to drain some of the surface water come the winter.

Things used to grow along here though mainly a ratty old hedge and blackberry bushes etc

I think you missed my point @NewspaperTaxis I was genuinely asking what the original issue was, from a gardening perspective. Apart from finding a lump of concrete, what are you trying to achieve - I'm not an archeologist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do a bit of gardening 👩‍🌾

Maybe I will install a 'French' pipe - how is that different to an English one - to drain some of the surface water come the winter

French drain? A French drain would need to drain off somewhere. It would need a trench digging from the wet bit through to a bit that does drain, lower in elevation so the water has somewhere to go. Then a layer of gravel. Then a perforated pipe. Then more gravel. Then the soil going back on the top.

This is fascinating

I don't have anything useful to contribute wrt to your gardening dilemma - just wanted to add that Ewell means 'eye-well' because the water from there was said to be good for curing eye conditions

Perhaps your water has curative properties too - you could maybe bottle it for sale!

Sell MNetters tickets to bathe in your purifying stream OP 😄

I'd plant something that doesn't mind having its feet in water half the year. Iris?