Second call to Thames, and managed to push them far enough to send someone out yesterday. Arrived only a little outside the four hour window.
Looks like there is NO Thames stopcock.
Came back this morning with plans - shows stopcock, and that this is a shared pipe feeding next door.
Anyway, they marked up where the stopcock is, sent digging team. Who arrived quite promptly and rechecked everything. We now have a decent size hole in our drive, and a pretty hefty gas leak. Where there was supposedly a stopcock is actually two gas pipes traversing a water pipe.
Nothing can now happen until gas people arrive - and the water diggers are pretty dismissive about them. Supervisor also arrived. Lots of calls. Lots of annoyance.
Still goodness knows how many litres of water pouring and and going... Actually, have no idea where it is going. I dug a miniature Venice, and somehow the water is flowing along that and disappearing at about the same rate it is arriving.
Only one external stopcock on whole street. Water people very confused. And fact that water main is shared is yet another complicating factor as the cost issues are still to be decided.