Tapping into an existing water table

These garden lakes and ponds near Broughton in Furness were created over a number of years. The first pond was created by us in 2006 while the latest was created in 2013. They established quickly over a few months and continue to develop with various flora and fauna. We regularly visit the site for other landscaping work and are pleased to watch as the lakes and ponds develop.

For this project we created a series of ponds in a relatively low lying area where the water table was close to the surface and the natural storm water run off from the surrounding area collects. The existing soil is peat, this helps to maintain the water at a relatively stable level when there is little rain fall. To create the ponds we dug down 1.5m in the centre of the pond and graded the edges at varying slopes depending on the planting requirements. We created shallow margins at the edge of the ponds for marginal planting, many areas of the pond were left for natural colonisation of plants and wildlife to take place.

The following photographs show the construction phases of the pond: