In reply to mullermn:
> We're currently looking at buying a house that has a spring in the garden, based on the maps in the title deeds etc. We've been there and looked around before realising this and I didn't notice anything remotely resembling a water course, so it's definitely not the Nile or anything. My question, which I've been having trouble answering via google, is: what does this actually mean? Is it definitely above ground? What's the minimum/maximum bounds of what counts as a spring, what can you do with it, does it confer any obligations on you etc?
There are a couple of springs on my folks' property. Over the years they've progressively dried up as woodland further up the hill grew, they can change over time. One used to flow year round providing the property with water, now it's a winter trickle, the other was only ever seasonal and didn't break the surface most years. The wetter one mostly stayed in its channel, occasionally it became a proper stream and washed the drive out but that's mostly because it and others up the hill had in the distant pass cut quite a valley, the valley gathered lots of surface water as well as hosting the spring. The seasonal one occasionally became a bog when combined with cows.
If there's no evidence of adaptation to deal with it (pond, drainage etc) it's probably at most a seasonal wet patch which might complicate any future ground works.
jk