Victorian groundwater drainage methods

Daisyg

On 13th August I came home to find water entering my kitchen from what appeared to be a localised area in a corner of the floor. To cut a long story short, we've dug a trench where earth was banked up behind the retaining walls of the kitchen. We discovered clay pipes which look like they run below the kitchen floor, and a pipe that comes from an external retaining wall. Does anyone have any knowledge of Victorian methods of draining groundwater? Could a problem with these pipes be causing the saturation of ground?  In the image, the left pipe runs from the external retaining wall, a slate laying horizontal (we had to cut the drain pot to keep the water away from the kitchen wall), the right pipe runs under the kitchen. There is a property on the other side of my kitchen.
Thanks.

j2009

It's hard to tell from your picture what was already there and what may have changed now that you have exposed the pipe. A slightly clearer picture/map would help.

Clay pipes can be used as land drains but they are butted up against each other and to be effective tend to be deeper underground. Therefore, and perhaps this is what you meant I'd guess from the info so far that is a solid pipe that has been broken and wasn't meant to collect water but simply transfer it. I assume when you say you cut the drain you mean you did so to allow the water that was in/around the pipe to flow into the drain that you see in the background?

I'd start but trying to work out which way it flows, maybe put a metre of hose in each end and pour some water in, see if it flows back out so you know the direction of travel.

Chances are this is hooked up to your gutters and not the sink etc in your kitchen so you could try pouring water into your gutters to check.

However, yes, if this pipe is broken as the picture suggests then there's a good chance it's saturating the ground and causing you damp issues.