Building the Walls

Building the Walls

The outer skin

The outer wall

The outer wall

The Outer wall

The outer wall

The Outer Wall

The Outer wall

The Outer wall

The pond will have raised planting areas to all but the front wall. At this point construction on the inner skin of the outer retaining wall has been started.

More work on the outer skin has been completed. A frame has been erected to the rear of the pond which will eventually hold the bamboo screening. Wall-ties have also been added to attach the front wall

Now for a tricky bit! Having never put more than a dozen bricks together in my life, the outer skin was a real challenge for me. Cheshire brick was used and the whole wall took me six days (working eight hours a day) to finish!

The left hand side of the pool. I found the key to building the wall was to get the right mortar mix. A cement mixer and some plasticizer adddtive were invaluable here.

This is the rear of the skimmer. The pipework and valves are being installed to take water to the waterfall or sub-surface return

This is the front wall. Again the concrete blocks have been painted with bitumen to seal them. Eventually the 6" gap in between will also be backfilled with concrete.

I erected a simple wooden frame to protect the structure. As I was working in the the middle of the British Winter, the option to cover up was sometimes welcome!

Here the gap between inner and outer front walls has been filled with concrete. The inner wall would now be brought up to height with two course of bricks laid on their side. A further row of bricks was also added to the outer wall after this picture was taken.

The end of the concrete backfill wher it will meet the soil added to the raised border on the left hand side of the pond.

When I carried and stacked the bricks near the pond I couldn'r believe how many there were! In the end I had about a dozen left over. Good guess or what!