Calling all Gardeners and Landscapers in the know

I have a proplem. I have a very small brook at the top of my garden that runs the length of the street and then some. I want to fill it in but obviously not stop the flow as I think this could create soggy ground issues.
I know I can do a French drain but because of lagistics and length it would be very costly and time consuming...something I don't want to do!

So, here's the big question....has anyone got any other ideas for me?

I was thinking of filling with large natural stone, as I have quite a few of these in my garden already, and then top with soil. Does anyone know if this would work or not?

Please help

Cheers

 

to the corner @ROC .. It would be good to see a photo of this - gives us a better idea of the garden
Shall have to see if we can find someone brainy to come up with the right solution here

 

Welcome to the corner

I'd just go for an unperforated drainage pipe and backfill with soil.

225mm Unperforated Twinwall Pipe (6m)

Depending on the flow it might pay to have 2 running parallel to cope with any storm surges

 

I would make it a feature. Dont fight it. You would need to pipe it professionally . Big costs big hassles, and because small brooks turn into raging torrents when in flood and if you mess with it diy style and it all goes pear shaped you may end up flooded or worse still your neighbours, who will have a bunch of money hungry lawyers all to eager to squeeze your bits.

 

If you use pipe always go bigger an you need as you don't want to cause any flooding that of your land and any neighbours, use can get the same pipe as Zigs link but agri spec which will be cheaper (the pipe will have orange colour on the inside) but will not be tested

You can't hold up water from your neighbours upstream, free passage

 

A very long time indeed since I studied this kind of stuff, but I have distant memories (that might help with a modern google search) about friction from the pipe wall being what slows flow down (in addition to gradient, and larger diameter pipes cope with shallow gradients better than smaller ones), so smaller bore pipes not only have reduced physical capacity, but this is compounded by additional friction (volume to internal surface are ratio) holding back flow as they come near to reaching full capacity, and you then have a flood upstream.

 

Brilliant stuff everyone thanks for the information. Think I might just go for the larger pipe option consisting everyone's advice.
Any other advice experiences welcome though