Advise extreme caution during removal.

Thanks for that. I'll get my spade ...

Chooky...thanks for the link here.....

........but if I comment on this pipe...I will definitely get myself into trouble! LOL :D

And it's been one of those weeks..... ;)

Finn, you are funny!

Now if this was in India I would say it was the vent for an illicit brewery for country liquor. If you look, close by there should be the trap door where you dump molasses and anything fermentable. The resulting brew is potent but is then distilled into an even more potent firewater. Reminds me of John Steinbeck's Old Tennis Shoes. Occasionally kills a few people, and you get letters in the newspapers from Vox Populis saying what a disgrace it is. A few arrests are made, but nobody ever digs up the barrels where the brew is made.

My favourite what is this pipe situation was when my daughter's flat was being taken apart. A pipe that appeared to link up to nothing at all appeared under the kitchen tiles, and was grasped by the plumber's mate to be yanked out. The plumber, noticing a small trickle, yelled at him to leave it alone. Too late. A powerful jet of water hit the opposite wall, even as the plumber leapt to close all the stopcocks. It went on.... One of the men rushed to the roof to shut off the water supply to the apartment. And still the water gushed. By now the kitchen was awash and an alarmed neighbour had come to say he was being flooded. Then the neighbour two floors down arrived to find out why he had no water. Our flood subsided because the tank was empty. The pipe was tracked along the wall; it went to the floor below. The cut end from above was sealed, the water supply cautiously turned on. The flat on the first floor didn't get any water. Why its supply had been routed through our kitchen we will never know, but a new pipeline was taken down the side of the building, just like everybody else's. We did a careful check of all plumbing thereafter and found one more line in the master bath. It was left untouched. But I asked my contractor to photograph all exposed plumbing before the tiles went on, ditto for wiring, so there would be no more disasters. We have the photos on file.

Lol!