When i moved into this place, the internal stop tap was seized solid, and began to leak when i tried to free it off, went to the external stop tap, lifted the cover and found the hole underneath filled with rubble, sand and tarmac bits,
the paths had been re-tarmac'd not that long ago (and as usual, just as it's looking nice, along comes the gas people and run in new gas mains along the path)
anyhoo, i phoned the water bods, severn trent here, and someone came out and sorted it, first he dug out some of the rubble and tarmac bits, then he found a house brick laying halfway accross the hole, he had to chisel that in half to make the hole clear, then he continued to clear the hole out, damn thing was about 5 foot deep,
then of course the stop tap was seized there too, but he dumped a container of something down the hole, flooding the stop tap, and 5 mins later he was able to turn it,
of course being 5 foot down the ole i had no chance of being able to operate it my self with my hand as i had hoped to do, but i had a water meter fitted soon after, and they turned the water off out there with their stop tap keys on poles, then removed the seized internal stop tap and replaced it with the meter and it's twin quarter turn service valves,