Waterfalls, streams, koi ponds, spillways and architectural fountains — built to run clean and to be shut down properly each autumn.

Water is the one element in a garden that works on hearing as much as sight. A spillway masks road noise more effectively than any amount of planting, and a still pool doubles the sky on a property that has one worth doubling.

It is also the element with the most that can go wrong. Circulation, filtration, make-up water, and a freeze cycle that will find any detail not designed for it. We build water features to run quietly and clean, and to be winterised without drama. For swimming pools, spas and pool houses, see Swimming Pools & Spas — that is a separate discipline and it has its own page.

Waterfalls and streams

A constructed stream only convinces if the stone looks like it was already there. That means bedding boulders deep enough to sit rather than perch, varying the drop so the sound is not metronomic, and hiding the point where the water starts. Flow is sized to the fall so the feature is audible from the terrace without having to talk over it.

Koi ponds and planted water

A pond that holds fish is a different build from one that only holds water — depth for overwintering, filtration sized well beyond the nominal volume, and shelves at the right heights for marginal planting. Done properly it clears itself; done to the minimum it becomes a summer-long chore.

Spillways, weirs and water walls

Weir detail determines whether water sheets cleanly or breaks into threads, and it is unforgiving of a few millimetres out of level. Against a wall the effect is architectural and the sound is controllable; the same detail run badly reads as a leak.

Reflection pools and pondless features

A still surface asks for precision — a level edge, a dark bottom, and enough depth that the reflection reads rather than the floor. Where standing water is not wanted, a pondless stream gives the movement and the sound with the reservoir buried in a basin below grade.

Circulation and winterisation

Pumps and filtration sized to the volume rather than to the smallest unit that will move it, and access designed for the person who has to service it. Every feature is detailed to be drained and shut down before the first hard freeze.