Water Borehole Drilling and Private Water Supplies in Hampshire

Borehole Service Utilities Ltd drills water boreholes across Hampshire, from the chalk downland around Basingstoke, Andover and Winchester to the greensand country of East Hampshire and the Palaeogene sands of the New Forest. The company installs private water supplies for houses, farms, estates and businesses, irrigation supplies for gardens, sports grounds, golf courses and nurseries, soakaway boreholes for surface water, solar-powered off grid pumping, filtration systems, and servicing for boreholes that already exist. Calls come through on 01428 735013, and the company works from just over the border in Surrey, close to the East Hampshire line.

A water borehole is a sealed shaft drilled into water-bearing rock, lined with casing, fitted with a submersible pump and connected to the property it serves. It gives a private water supply with no meter, no standing charge and no hosepipe ban. Hampshire is good ground for borehole drilling: most of the county sits on the Chalk, one of the most productive aquifers in England, and where the Chalk is absent there is usually another formation worth investigating. The job is knowing which one lies under your field before the rig arrives.

Water well boreholes for Hampshire homes, farms and estates

A water well borehole gives a Hampshire property its own private water supply, drilled on site and independent of the mains. Borehole Service Utilities Ltd drills and equips these supplies for houses, farms, estates, equestrian yards and rural businesses across the county. The finished job is a cased and grouted shaft into the aquifer, a submersible pump set at depth, a rising main, a control panel, and usually a storage tank so the pump is not asked to meet peak demand on its own. Once commissioned, the supply runs on electricity and servicing rather than on a water bill.

The properties that benefit most are the ones the mains never reached, or reached at a price. Large parts of rural Hampshire fall into that category: the SO21 ring of villages around Winchester, the chalk parishes of SO24 around New Alresford, the hop and arable country of GU34 near Alton, and the downland holdings of RG25 and SP11. A farm with livestock to water, a nursery with beds to irrigate, or a house at the end of a long private drive often finds that its own borehole is simpler than a new mains connection.

Mains supply in Hampshire is split between companies, which surprises people. Southern Water is the sewerage undertaker across the county and supplies drinking water in much of it. Portsmouth Water supplies drinking water only, across 868 square kilometres of South East Hampshire and West Sussex, from the River Meon in the west to the River Arun in the east, serving a domestic population of more than 700,000. Bournemouth Water, part of South West Water Limited, supplies Ringwood, Fordingbridge and the western New Forest as far east as Beaulieu. Many households are billed by one company for water and another for wastewater.

A completed private water supply from Borehole Service Utilities Ltd normally includes:

  • A drilled shaft into the target aquifer, cased and grouted to seal shallow water out
  • A submersible pump set at a depth worked out from the test pumping results
  • Rising main, cable, headworks and a control panel
  • A storage tank sized to cover peak demand rather than loading the pump
  • Filtration and disinfection matched to the laboratory analysis of your own water
  • The strata log and pump data handed over at the end of the job

What is under Hampshire, and what does it mean for drilling?

Hampshire's main aquifer is the Chalk Group, and it underlies most of the north and centre of the county. British Geological Survey mapping puts Basingstoke, Overton, Whitchurch, Odiham, Sherborne St John, Preston Candover and Dummer on the Seaford Chalk; Winchester and Stockbridge on the Lewes Nodular Chalk; and Andover, New Alresford and Medstead on the Newhaven Chalk. The older Grey Chalk Subgroup forms the scarp, with Zig Zag Chalk at Alton, Chawton, Burghclere, Butser Hill and Buriton, and West Melbury Marly Chalk at East Meon. Chalk supplies for a house or farm are commonly around 30 to 90 metres deep.

East Hampshire is different ground. Petersfield town and Bordon sit on the Folkestone Formation, Liphook on the Hythe Formation and Liss on the Pulborough Sandrock — all Lower Greensand, where 25 to 80 metres is the usual working range and yields vary more than they do in the Chalk. The Upper Greensand, the local malmstone, is the bedrock at Selborne and reappears at Beacon Hill near Burghclere in the Kingsclere anticline. Between them lies the Gault, mapped at East Worldham and at Stroud, which yields nothing at all and simply has to be drilled through and cased out.

South and west Hampshire sit on the Palaeogene of the Hampshire Basin, and this is where assumptions do the most damage. Romsey and Wickham are on the Wittering Formation, Bishop's Waltham on the Lambeth Group, Ringwood on the Selsey Sand, Lyndhurst on the Chama Sand, and Brockenhurst and Beaulieu on the Headon Hill Formation. Fordingbridge, Denmead, Hook, Tadley and — despite the downs beside them — the villages of Kingsclere and Highclere are on London Clay. Sand members within the sequence can give a modest supply; the clays give none, so depth here is decided by the drilling log, not by a rule of thumb.

The formations Borehole Service Utilities Ltd drills in Hampshire, with indicative working depths:

  • Chalk Group, White and Grey Chalk subgroups — the north and centre of the county, from Basingstoke and Andover to Winchester, Stockbridge, New Alresford and Odiham. Commonly 30 to 90 metres, and often 30 to 60 metres in the Test, Itchen, Alre and Meon valleys where fissuring is best developed.
  • Lower Greensand, the Folkestone, Sandgate and Hythe formations — East Hampshire only: Bordon, Petersfield, Liphook and Liss. Broadly 25 to 80 metres, with more variable yields than the Chalk.
  • Upper Greensand, the local malmstone — a narrow strip below the chalk escarpment at Selborne, and an inlier at Beacon Hill near Burghclere. Broadly 20 to 60 metres, and often drilled through on the way into the Chalk.
  • Gault — mapped at East Worldham and Stroud. Not a supply target. It has to be drilled through and cased out to reach a productive formation.
  • Palaeogene of the Hampshire Basin — the New Forest, Ringwood, Fordingbridge, Romsey, Wickham, Bishop's Waltham, Hook, Tadley, Fleet and Hartley Wintney. Too variable to quote a depth; site investigation matters more here than anywhere else in the county.
  • River terrace deposits and alluvium — along the Test, Itchen, Meon and Hampshire Avon. Shallow and vulnerable to surface contamination, so normally sealed off rather than used as the supply.

Where Borehole Service Utilities Ltd drills in Hampshire

Borehole Service Utilities Ltd works across Hampshire, from the Berkshire border down to the Solent side of the county. In the north that means the rural belt of RG25 around Dummer, Cliddesden, Herriard, Preston Candover and Upton Grey, the Test headwater villages of RG28 at Hurstbourne Priors, Laverstoke and Litchfield, and the North Wessex Downs parishes of RG20 and RG26 around Kingsclere, Highclere, Burghclere, Tadley and Baughurst. Hart district follows, with RG27 covering Bramshill, Mattingley, Rotherwick, Eversley, Dogmersfield and Winchfield, RG29 covering Odiham, Long Sutton, South Warnborough and Greywell, and GU51 and GU52 covering Fleet, Church Crookham, Crookham Village and Ewshot.

Through the middle of the county the work is chalk work. Winchester and its SO23 and SO22 postcodes give way to the SO21 ring — Sparsholt, Hursley, Crawley, Micheldever, Owslebury, Twyford and the Itchen Valley parishes. SO24 takes in New Alresford, Ropley, Cheriton, Old Alresford, Bighton, Northington, the Candovers and Bramdean. Westward, SP10 and SP11 cover Andover, Abbotts Ann, Amport, Thruxton, Longparish, St Mary Bourne and Hurstbourne Tarrant, and SO20 covers the Test valley at Longstock, Leckford, Chilbolton, Wherwell, Kings Somborne and the Wallops. SO51 and SO52 reach Romsey, Braishfield, Mottisfont, Ampfield and North Baddesley.

In the east and south the company covers GU34 around Alton, Froyle, Binsted, Bentworth, Medstead, Selborne and Chawton, and GU35 at Bordon, Whitehill, Lindford, Kingsley and Headley — the one outcode here that lies wholly within East Hampshire district. Around Petersfield, GU32, GU31, GU33 and GU30 take in East Meon, Steep, Buriton, Liss, Greatham and Liphook, though GU30, GU31 and GU33 cross into Chichester district in West Sussex. SO32 covers the Meon Valley, PO7, PO8 and PO17 reach Denmead, Hambledon, Wickham and Southwick, and BH24, SP6, SO41, SO42 and SO43 cover Ringwood, Fordingbridge and the New Forest.

What happens on site, from survey to commissioning

A borehole project runs in a fixed order: desk study, permissions, drilling, casing and grouting, development, test pumping, sampling, pump installation and commissioning. It starts with a study of the geology beneath the site and a walk round to find a drilling position with rig access, clear of drains, cables, septic systems and overhead lines. The position matters more than most people expect, because the borehole has to stay reachable for servicing for the next few decades, not only on the day the rig arrives.

Drilling advances a hole through the superficial deposits and any unproductive cover, and steel or plastic casing is then set and grouted to seal the shallow ground out. Along the Test at Stockbridge and Romsey, the Itchen below Winchester and the Hampshire Avon at Ringwood and Fordingbridge there are river terrace gravels near surface. They carry shallow water that is vulnerable to surface and agricultural contamination, so they are cased off rather than used. Below the casing the hole is left open in competent chalk, or screened where sand can run. The borehole is then developed to clear drilling debris and open up the fissures.

Test pumping is the part that produces the answer. The borehole is pumped at a measured rate while water levels are recorded, so the sustainable output and the correct pump setting depth are worked out rather than guessed. A water sample goes to a laboratory, and those results decide the filtration. The submersible pump, rising main, cable, headworks and control panel then go in, the supply is disinfected and connected, and the system is handed over with the strata log and the pump data. That log has to be submitted to the authorities in any case, as set out below.

The order of work on a Hampshire borehole:

  • Desk study of the geology beneath the site, and a site walk to fix the drilling position
  • Permissions checked: consent to investigate a groundwater source, the section 198 notice, and whether an abstraction licence is needed
  • Drilling, with casing set and grouted to seal shallow water out
  • Screen installed where the formation can run sand, or open hole in competent chalk
  • Development to clear drilling debris and open the fissures
  • Test pumping with water levels recorded, to establish the sustainable output
  • Laboratory analysis of a water sample to decide the treatment
  • Pump, rising main, headworks and controls installed and wired
  • Disinfection, commissioning and handover with the strata log and pump curve

Do you need a licence for a borehole in Hampshire?

You need a full abstraction licence from the Environment Agency for most types of water abstraction over 20 cubic metres a day. Below that figure no licence is needed, but only where the abstraction is part of a single operation, and if you take water from the same source at more than one point the exemption applies only if the combined total of all of them is 20 cubic metres a day or less. A house, or a house with modest stock and garden watering, normally sits under the threshold. A commercial nursery, a golf course, a large irrigation scheme or a big dairy or arable operation very often does not.

There is an earlier step before the licence application. GOV.UK states that if you want to abstract groundwater you must check whether you need to apply for consent to investigate a groundwater source before you apply for a licence, and that this applies where you intend to construct a well, borehole or other work from which you want to abstract groundwater, or to extend one. Separately, section 198 of the Water Resources Act 1991 requires anyone proposing to sink a well or borehole intended to reach more than fifty feet below the surface — about 15 metres — for searching for or abstracting water to give notice before beginning.

That notice goes to UK Research and Innovation, which replaced NERC in the Act on 1 April 2018, and is administered in practice by the BGS National Geoscience Data Centre. BGS states the trigger as 15 metres or more, and says it also covers trial, monitoring and observation boreholes and deep soakaway boreholes, and applies when an existing well is deepened. Section 198(2) then requires a journal of the work — the strata passed through, the levels at which water was struck and rested, and particulars of any flow test — to be sent on completion or abandonment. The penalty on summary conviction is a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale, with a further £20 for every day an offence continues after conviction.

Filtration and treatment for Hampshire borehole water

Chalk water in Hampshire is hard to very hard calcium-bicarbonate water, bacteriologically good from depth, and normally treated for hardness and disinfection rather than for anything unusual. The standard fit is sediment filtration, limescale reduction or softening, and UV disinfection. Two things are worth testing for specifically. Nitrate can be elevated where the land above the borehole has been in long-term arable, which describes a great deal of the downland in Basingstoke and Deane, Test Valley and Winchester district. Turbidity can spike after heavy rain where water moves through open fissures rather than through the rock matrix. Iron is usually low in the unconfined Chalk.

Water from the Lower Greensand behaves differently. It is usually softer than chalk water, often mildly acidic, and very commonly carries dissolved iron and manganese that oxidise into orange or black staining as soon as they meet air. Around Bordon, Liphook, Liss and Petersfield the normal arrangement is iron and manganese removal with pH correction, plus UV for disinfection. The Upper Greensand at Selborne tends to be moderately hard but carries more iron and silica because of its glauconitic sand content. Palaeogene sand water in the New Forest and the west of the county is often soft, acidic and coloured by organic matter.

Regulation 6 of the Private Water Supplies (England) Regulations 2016, as amended in 2018, requires the local authority to carry out a risk assessment for private water supplies in its area and to review it every five years. For a supply to a single dwelling that is not provided commercially or as part of a public activity, that duty only arises on request from the owner or occupier. In Hampshire the responsible authority is the district or borough council — Winchester, East Hampshire, Test Valley, Basingstoke and Deane, Hart, New Forest, Fareham, Havant or Eastleigh — and because several outcodes span more than one of them, it depends on the property rather than on the postcode district.

Treatment commonly fitted to Hampshire borehole supplies:

  • Sediment and particle filtration, on every supply
  • UV disinfection as the standard bacteriological safeguard
  • Limescale reduction or softening on hard chalk water
  • Iron and manganese removal on Lower Greensand and Palaeogene supplies
  • pH correction where the water is naturally acidic
  • Periodic sampling, filter changes and UV lamp replacement to keep the treatment working

Irrigation and off grid water supply for gardens, sports grounds and farms

Irrigation boreholes supply gardens, sports pitches, golf courses, nurseries, vineyards and farms with water that is not metered and not subject to a hosepipe ban. Hampshire has a long history of growing that depends on groundwater. New Alresford is the historic centre of English watercress growing, cultivated on the chalk springs of the River Alre, and Vitacress began there in 1951 with a single acre of watercress beds before moving its headquarters to Lower Link Farm at St Mary Bourne. Watercress beds depend entirely on a constant flow of clean spring water, which is exactly what a chalk borehole delivers.

Vineyards of Hampshire lists ten members, among them Hambledon on the Newhaven Chalk in PO7, where Major Guy Salisbury-Jones planted England's first commercial vineyard in 1952, and Danebury near Stockbridge, which sits on the site of a 19th-century racehorse training yard whose stables closed in 1898. Container and field nurseries, including the long-established nursery trade around Romsey and Ampfield where the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens are, are among the heaviest irrigation users of any rural business. For all of these, the 20 cubic metre a day figure needs checking before the pump is sized, not afterwards.

Off grid solutions cover properties with no practical mains connection and, often, a weak or absent electricity supply. Borehole Service Utilities Ltd installs solar-powered down-hole pumps that run a borehole from panels and a controller instead of a grid connection, filling a storage tank through the day so the water is there when it is wanted. It suits remote holdings on the New Forest fringe in SO41, SO42 and SO43, the Avon valley farms of SP6 around Damerham, Rockbourne and Whitsbury, and downland units in SP11 a long way from a service road.

Irrigation boreholes in Hampshire typically supply:

  • Sports pitches, cricket squares and golf courses
  • Container and field nurseries, and glasshouse growing
  • Vineyards on the chalk and greensand
  • Watercress and salad growing on the chalk springs
  • Arable spraying, crop irrigation, livestock water and yard washdown
  • Large private gardens, parkland and estate grounds

Soakaway boreholes, servicing and fault finding

A soakaway borehole disposes of surface water by taking it down through unsuitable near-surface ground into a permeable formation below. It is the answer where a conventional shallow soakaway will not percolate — the heavy clay ground found at Denmead, Hook, Tadley and Fordingbridge on the London Clay, or at Bishop's Waltham on the Lambeth Group. The borehole is drilled, cased through the impermeable layer and finished so that clean surface water drains away instead of ponding on the surface, backing up into a yard or running off onto a neighbour's land.

Only clean surface water should go into a soakaway borehole, and anything else needs checking with the Environment Agency before the first drop enters. Roof water and clean yard drainage are the usual sources. Depth and diameter depend on how far down the permeable formation lies and how much water has to disappear in a storm, which is why the strata log from drilling matters as much here as it does on a supply borehole. BGS also treats deep soakaway boreholes as notifiable at 15 metres or more, so the same notice and journal apply.

Boreholes need servicing, and many of the faults Borehole Service Utilities Ltd is called out to are avoidable. Pumps wear, pressure vessels lose their charge, filters clog, UV lamps pass their service life, and a screen or fissure can silt or scale up so that a borehole which once ran freely starts to draw down. The company services pumps, investigates yield and water quality problems, runs downhole CCTV to see what is actually happening inside the shaft, and rehabilitates boreholes that have lost output rather than replacing them where the original hole is still sound.

Signs a Hampshire borehole needs attention:

  • Output falling, or the pump running longer to fill the same tank
  • Sand, grit or cloudiness appearing in the supply
  • Orange or black staining on sanitaryware, which usually points to iron or manganese
  • The pump cycling on and off more often than it used to
  • A failed or overdue water sample
  • A UV lamp past its service life, or filters left in beyond their change interval

Borehole drilling by town and postcode in Hampshire

These are the 20 main towns and postcode districts Borehole Service Utilities Ltd covers in Hampshire. The surrounding villages and outlying farms in each of these districts are covered too, so it is worth ringing even if your own village is not named here.

  • Winchester – SO23, SO22, SO21
  • New Alresford – SO24
  • Alton – GU34
  • Petersfield – GU32, GU31, GU33
  • Liphook – GU30
  • Bordon and Whitehill – GU35
  • Basingstoke – RG21, RG24, RG23, RG22, RG25
  • Overton and Whitchurch – RG28, RG25
  • Kingsclere and Highclere – RG20, RG26
  • Odiham – RG29
  • Hook and Hartley Wintney – RG27
  • Fleet and Church Crookham – GU51, GU52
  • Andover – SP10, SP11
  • Stockbridge – SO20
  • Romsey – SO51, SO52
  • Bishop's Waltham and Droxford – SO32
  • Denmead, Hambledon and Wickham – PO7, PO8, PO17
  • Ringwood – BH24
  • Fordingbridge – SP6
  • Brockenhurst, Beaulieu and Lyndhurst – SO42, SO43, SO41

Borehole Questions from Hampshire Property Owners

Most private water boreholes in Hampshire are between roughly 30 and 90 metres deep, but the figure depends entirely on the formation beneath the site. In the Test, Itchen, Alre and Meon valleys, chalk boreholes are often shallower, around 30 to 60 metres, because the water table is near surface and fissuring is well developed. Lower Greensand boreholes in East Hampshire usually run 25 to 80 metres, and Upper Greensand 20 to 60 metres. These are general ranges, not a prediction for any one site.

You need a full abstraction licence from the Environment Agency for most types of water abstraction over 20 cubic metres a day. Below that no licence is needed, provided the abstraction is part of a single operation; where you take water from the same source at several points, the combined total of all of them must be 20 cubic metres a day or less. A normal household supply usually falls under the threshold. A nursery, golf course or large farm often does not, so work out your own daily demand.

Borehole water in Hampshire is usually safe to drink once it has been tested and treated to suit the water chemistry. Water drawn from depth is normally good bacteriologically, but it still needs laboratory analysis and, in most cases, sediment filtration and UV disinfection. Chalk supplies should be checked for nitrate, and for turbidity after heavy rain. Lower Greensand and Palaeogene supplies usually need iron and manganese removal and pH correction. Your district council also has duties for private supplies under the 2016 Regulations.

Drilling a domestic borehole usually takes a few days on site, with the whole programme running longer once permissions, test pumping, laboratory analysis, pump installation and commissioning are included. Ground conditions drive the timetable: a clean chalk hole progresses faster than one that has to be cased through clay or running sand first. Test pumping cannot be rushed, because it is what establishes the sustainable output and the pump setting depth. Expect the site work in days and the full project in weeks.

Output depends on the formation rather than on the depth of the hole, and it is established by test pumping rather than estimated in advance. The Chalk is the dominant aquifer in Hampshire and generally the most productive. The Lower Greensand is more variable, and Palaeogene sands typically give a modest supply while the clays give none at all. Most supplies pair the pump with a storage tank, so that peak demand is met from stored water instead of from the borehole alone.

Yes. Many Hampshire properties keep the mains for drinking and use a borehole for irrigation, livestock, washdown or filling ponds and tanks, which takes that demand off a metered supply. The two systems are kept physically separate to protect the mains. The abstraction rules still apply, so the 20 cubic metres a day threshold has to be checked against your combined daily use. A borehole installed for irrigation can also be built up later to serve the whole property.

A borehole needs its pump serviced, its filters and UV lamp changed on schedule, its pressure vessel checked and its water sampled periodically. Most problems build slowly: falling output, sand in the supply, staining on sanitaryware, or a pump cycling more than it used to. Borehole Service Utilities Ltd services pumps, runs downhole CCTV to inspect casing and screens, and rehabilitates boreholes that have silted or scaled up. Catching a change early usually costs far less than replacing a pump that has run to failure.

Yes, but the clay itself is never the target. The Gault at East Worldham and Stroud yields nothing, and the London Clay at Denmead, Hook, Tadley, Fordingbridge and the villages of Kingsclere and Highclere is the same. In those places the borehole is drilled through the clay and cased out to reach a productive formation beneath or beyond it. Where clay makes surface water drainage impossible, a deep soakaway borehole solves the opposite problem by taking water down to permeable strata.

Borehole Service Utilities Ltd covers Hampshire county-wide. That includes Winchester and the SO21 villages, New Alresford, Alton, Petersfield, Liphook, Bordon, Basingstoke and the RG25 downland, Overton, Whitchurch, Kingsclere, Highclere, Odiham, Hook, Hartley Wintney, Fleet, Andover, Stockbridge, Romsey, Bishop's Waltham, the Meon Valley, Denmead, Wickham, Ringwood, Fordingbridge and the New Forest. Some outcodes cross into West Sussex, Wiltshire, Dorset or Berkshire, so a site near the boundary is confirmed by address rather than postcode. Call 01428 735013 to check a location.

Talk to a borehole contractor who knows Hampshire ground

Call Borehole Service Utilities Ltd on 01428 735013 to discuss a water borehole, an irrigation supply, a soakaway borehole or a pump problem anywhere in Hampshire. Give the address and say roughly what the water is for, and you will get a straight answer on what is likely to lie under the site, what the programme involves, what treatment the water is likely to need, and whether an abstraction licence comes into it. You can also ring 07970 573840 or 07517 151270, or email info@boreholeservice.co.uk.