John Stumbles wrote:

If it's the stopcock where the water company service meets your pipework
then I think it's their responsibility and if you tell them you can't
find it they should come out and locate it and make it accessible for you.

That's more or less what I have tried.
We don't have water companies as such here -
the local council is responsible for the supply.
They tell me that they do not keep any record of where stopcocks are,
so I am hoping they have some technical way of finding mine,
though I didn't get the impression that they had anything clever in mind.
In any case, the council's water expert is coming round on Monday to look.

I've actually located something with my grand-daughter's metal detector,
though whether it is the lost stopcock I'm not sure.
If it is then it is covered with quite a think layer of asphalt.
I'm wondering if I dig it up whether I can put the asphalt back,
as it is in the middle of a fairly well-used common driveway.

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland