How deep is the water table here?
How deep is the water table here — and would a borehole yield?
Everyone asks it before a borehole, a basement, a soakaway or a land purchase — and almost everyone guesses. It is measured: the Environment Agency logs groundwater levels at ~3,600 monitoring boreholes across England, many several times a day. Enter a postcode or a spot and we read the nearest one — depth to water, today — free. The full report reads the three nearest boreholes with their seasonal swing and decades of records, the aquifer under your point and what it would yield, and the rules for putting a well in.
Three monitored aquifers within 4.4 km — Lower Greensand and two Chalk members — on records back to 1964, over a sandstone aquifer the BGS rates at up to 50 L/s.
Read the full sample report →What the report covers
Depth to water, measured
the three nearest EA monitoring boreholes: distance, the aquifer each one reads, and today’s depth below ground
The seasonal swing
each borehole’s 12-month high and low, where today sits in that range, and whether levels are rising or falling
Decades of records
highest and lowest level ever recorded where the archive exists — some stations run back to the 1960s and beyond
The rock under the point
BGS hydrogeology: the aquifer’s productivity class and indicative yield, from 50 L/s to none
Drinking-water protection
whether the point sits in an EA source protection zone, and what that changes
The rules for a borehole
the 20 m³/day licence-free allowance, borehole notification, and private-supply registration
The nearest-borehole check is free and stays free. The full report is £19 one-off — no subscription.
How deep is the water table here?
The honest answer is measured, not modelled. The Environment Agency runs roughly 3,600 groundwater monitoring boreholes across England, many logging levels several times a day, and each one records the ground level at the borehole — so depth to water is a real subtraction, not an estimate. The free check finds the nearest monitoring borehole to your spot and shows today’s depth to water there. The full report reads the three nearest, which matters because the water table is a surface with shape: two boreholes 3 km apart can honestly disagree by 10 m.
Is the level at the nearest borehole the level under my land?
Not necessarily, and we say so on every report. Groundwater sits in specific rock units, and a monitoring borehole measures the aquifer it is drilled into — which may be deeper or shallower than the first water under your field. Local clay lenses can also hold "perched" water well above the regional table. That is why the report names the aquifer each borehole monitors (Chalk, Lower Greensand, Sherwood Sandstone and so on) and pairs the levels with the British Geological Survey’s map of what rock is actually under your point, so you can see whether the borehole and your land are reading the same water.
Does the water table move around during the year?
Yes — often by metres, and that is the single most common mistake in planning a borehole, a basement or a soakaway: measuring once, in the wrong season. English aquifers typically recharge through winter, peak in early spring, and fall through summer to an autumn low. Chalk boreholes routinely swing 5–15 m over a year. The report shows the last 12 months’ highest and lowest level at each borehole, where today sits in that range, the current direction of travel, and — where the archive exists — the highest and lowest level ever recorded, on records that at some stations run back to the 1960s and beyond.
Can I drill a borehole for my own water supply?
In England you can abstract up to 20 cubic metres of water per day — about 20,000 litres, more than most homes, smallholdings or irrigation setups use — without an abstraction licence. Above that you need a licence from the Environment Agency. Whether a borehole would actually yield water is a different question, and it is what the report’s geology section answers: the BGS hydrogeology map classifies the aquifer under your point and gives its indicative yield, from "highly productive, up to 50 litres per second" down to "essentially no groundwater". A private supply used for drinking must also be registered with your local council, which risk-assesses and tests it under the Private Water Supplies Regulations.
Why would I need to know the water table depth?
It decides more purchases and projects than almost any other invisible number. A basement or cellar dug into a high water table needs tanking and pumped drainage for life. A soakaway needs unsaturated ground beneath it to work at all. A ground-source heat pump loop, a pond, a burial of services, farm drainage, cellar humidity, and the flood behaviour of a plot in wet winters all hang off it. And if you are buying bare land hoping for a private water supply, the difference between a productive aquifer at 8 m and dry mudstone is the difference between a working smallholding and a water bowser.
What is a source protection zone, and should I care?
Around public drinking-water boreholes and springs the Environment Agency designates source protection zones — Zone 1 (inner, 50-day travel time), Zone 2 (outer) and Zone 3 (total catchment). Inside them, activities that could pollute groundwater face extra scrutiny: new boreholes, soakaways, septic tanks and fuel storage can need permits or be refused. The full report checks whether your point sits in one, which is worth knowing before you design a drainage scheme — and is also quiet good news about the water: the EA protects aquifers that supply drinking water.
Which areas are covered?
The measured levels come from the Environment Agency’s hydrology network, which covers England only. The geology layer — the BGS 625k hydrogeology map — covers the whole UK, so a Welsh or Scottish check still gets an honest read of the aquifer under the point, clearly labelled as geology rather than measurement. For measured levels in Wales start with Natural Resources Wales; in Scotland, SEPA. Where the nearest English borehole is a long way off, the report says so plainly rather than passing a distant reading off as local truth.
Sources: Environment Agency Hydrology API groundwater levels (OGL v3.0); EA Source Protection Zones (OGL v3.0); BGS 1:625,000 hydrogeology and GeoSure ground hazards — contains British Geological Survey materials © UKRI. Groundwater information from public monitoring, not a site investigation: levels are measured at the boreholes named, not under your land, and local conditions (perched water, confined aquifers) can differ. Not a substitute for a hydrogeologist’s survey where the stakes demand one.
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