THE Chronicle’s recent report about a mysterious sinkhole appearing on the Mardy playing fields triggered an avalanche of speculation concerning its origins.

Some dismissed it as little more than a hole dug up by a mischievous and energetic terrier, others blamed a nearby culvert for the unwelcome hole in the ground.

The more imaginative made the leap from a bog-standard sinkhole to a portal into another dimension,

but the general consensus was that it was probably a result of the playing fields being built on what used to be a tip of sorts.

Naturally, sinkholes are no laughing matter.

From the Devil’s Sinkhole in Texas and the Qattara Depression in Egypt to China’s Heavenly Pit and Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas, sinkholes are a force of nature and you underestimate them at your peril.

Thankfully, when the Mardy sinkhole was discovered, a precautionary traffic cone was placed over it while thorough investigations were carried out.

The Chronicle can now reveal, that after a lot of intensive probing and prodding the hole that has caused such distress to the Mardy community can finally be explained.

Vice Chairman of Llantilio Pertholey Community Council, Clive Harry, explained, “Since talking with the Chronicle last, an engineer from Monmouthshire County Council’s Land Drainage Department conducted a thorough investigation into the area and after checking their historic land drainage records, could find no issues appearing at this location previously or any similar issues nearby.

“They also checked Dŵr Cymru’s records of mains water and wastewater/sewage networks and could find no evidence of any pipes or culverts running underneath the pitch.”

Clive did explain they found a map from 1900 which showed a well in the back garden of one of the nearby houses on Hereford Road and there were a few ponds located near the community centre’s carpark which lead to a very small watercourse which runs along the boundary of two properties below, before being culverted underneath Hereford Rd.

Yet the watercourse had no headwalls or pipes connecting to it.

Because no obvious cause for the sinkhole was identified, Llantilio Pertholey Community Council was given the option simply to dig up and backfill the area if there did not appear to be a major problem.

Yet when work started this week, the real cause of the sinkhole became apparent.

Clive told the Chronicle, “It soon became clear that the situation had been caused by rubbish being tipped on the site many years ago and not being compressed before being covered with topsoil.

“Digging down revealed items such as concrete beams and lumps of tarmac but the presence of unbroken glass bottles at the bottom of the excavation made it clear that the area had simply been covered over without being tamped down and, whilst the top surface had been held together by grass roots, the ground beneath had settled over the years and left a void between the two layers.

Clive added, “We feel after the investigations which have been undertaken by the County Council and ourselves that there is not a major subsidence problem and, if any further problems are encountered after the work is completed, we should be able to deal with them much quicker. In the meantime, the gates to the playing area will remain locked for the foreseeable future. Partly for safety reasons but also because under the new Public Spaces Protection Order 2024, dogs even on a lead are banned from sports pitches. It is hoped that restoration work to the football pitch can be completed in the next few weeks.”