Swimming pond, Salisbury, Wiltshire.
The plan for this property near Salisbury was to construct a large swimming pond as part of a major restoration of the house and garden.
At 30 metres long and covering 450 square metres this is an impressive feature of the clients’ garden.
At the design stage, various options were discussed, and it was decided that anything much smaller would not have the same impact that this one has, in this large garden.
As it stands the pond fits well in this location. It looks natural now that it has matured and has a wildflower meadow as a backdrop when viewed from the new summerhouse.
To ensure water clarity, the water is pumped through gravel planting media and the roots of the aquatic plants.
To enable this, perforated plastic pipework is buried under a deep bed of gravel.
This pipework goes around the entire perimeter of the pond and is connected to a large, dry mounted pump.
In the pump chamber, the pump works to draw water through the skimmers and the pump then returns the water to the pond through the pipework in the gravel beds.
The aquatic plants and bacteria that live in and on the gravel remove nitrates and phosphates as the water flows past.
Three years after completion the water was tested by a lab and they said it was the cleanest swimming pond water they had ever tested.
See swimming ponds
The images below show how we completed the brief
(click on expanded image for slideshow)