Connecting guttering to old cast iron

Steev180

Hi all, sorry, long-winded post but I  wondered if I could get some advice from someone who might’ve come up against this in the past. Moved into our 1930’s semi 4 years ago or so, been aware since day one that the (relatively new) plastic downpipe from ours and next doors guttering (downpipe is on our turf) simply juts out about 1.5m from house via an elbow connector and discharged rainwater onto the small patch of grass in our front garden, which puddles in heavy rain and had created a bit of a dip in the soil - no big deal I thought when buying, we were renovating the whole house anyway. Fast forward 4 years, a few days ago I’ve dug up beneath where the rainwater drain would be/should be at the bottom of the downpipe and sure enough found the beginning of what I think is the surface water drain, but the opening/hopper seems to have at some stage been filled in with concrete?! I can chip this away, or simply cut into and connect the plastic downpipe to the (80mm diameter I measure) cast iron pipe which runs away from the house, underground into the garden towards the street, solving the issue hopefully? I could cut into it and find it’s blocked completely, in which case where do I go from here? 

I've head of retro fitting soakaways, and that these must be min. 5m from the building and 2.5m from neighbours boundary etc but I honestly don’t think the front gardens big enough! Look forward to hearing from anyone.

FreeBear

If your drainage is anything like mine, there may well be a soakaway about half way down the fence line between yourself and the neighbour. I have a brick chamber some 600mm diameter and 2m deep, about 150mm below the ground. This was put in when the houses were built (late 1920s).

You may need to do a bit of digging where the "hopper" is and track where the pipes run to. Chances are, there is a 1930s soakaway somewhere and the clay pipes leading to it are clogged up with roots & other debris.