Geography in Kent > Geographical and Geological Features

Darland Banks 'lines'

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DaveTheTrain:
I spent a bit of time this evening, looking at this.  As Dave Smith points out there is a direct line from the Capstone Pumping Station and the adits it sits on and the marks in Hodge's first photo.  Additionally there are crop marks in the north side of the grass adjacent to the car park on Luton Rec.  My first pic shows the crop marks, my second pic shows how they all align.


Additionally, the field to the north of the pumping station has crop marks that follow this track, too.  These can be seen on the 1980 and 2008 interactive maps on the KCC KLIS site.  I have included one as my third pic.


It could of course be simply confirmation bias, and as Colin Walsh suggests it is trench marks from the fort or barracks that were nearby.  A field trip i think.
DTT

Colin walsh:
Smiffy,I recall an article on the "other"fourum concerning these markings,the story was it was were troops were trained to dig trenches before going to France in ww1.

Smiffy:
Interestingly they're clearly visible on LiDAR, so maybe there is some other explanation?

Dave Smith:
As they appear so straight & therefore probably man made, I wonder whether they might be water supply pipes, for the water works was at the bottom of D.B's at Luton- Artesian I believe- & I think there was an underground storage reservoir off Star Mill Road?- maybe others? (instead of the usual water tower) to supply by gravity- or a small pump locally. The reason for 4 pipes could be that, as the water has to be pumped up from Luton, instead of one large pipe, 4 smaller ones have the same friction loss( therefore the same power from pumps),cost about the same but much easier to install in relatively unstable ground as at the top of Darland Banks. Just a thought.   

Hodge:
Well, I did think that these humps could indeed have been a natural feature of the landscape when I first noticed them, but when I was looking at the area on Google Earth, they do appear to be in unnaturally straight lines. If it was just one line then I probably would have assumed it was caused by erosion or some other geological process, but as there are at least 4 very straight lines all running parallel to each other, it seems unlikely to be a natural form in the landscape. Of course, natural phenomena can create some incredible and very unnatural-looking forms (and at this point I would have liked to give an example, but typically, my mind has gone completely blank!), but these do indeed appear to be man-made.


Maybe they ARE those mythical tunnels after all - or Darland is home to some very big moles who have access to GPS equipment....  ;)

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