Lake

“The best drained land in Somerset”, “you will never manage to fill it” and “you don’t have a borehole with enough water to keep it topped up”, were just a few of the many bits of advice we received when we set about constructing our 2.5 acre lake on the side of a hill in 2006. Determined to prove them wrong (and clearly too stubborn for our own good), we dug test holes and started digging later on that year. By the spring of 2007 a porous clay meant that all the water had drained away, we were left with our very own ‘blot on the landscape’! Our options of importing blue clay, creating a bentonite trench or lining with polyethylene seemed expensive and impractical. Just as it seemed we had run out of options, our luck changed and we managed to buy materials and the expertise at a knock down price and the rest is history.

Eight years on we have a beautiful lake with an island lined with hessian, polyethylene, hessian again, mud and thereby creating a natural bottom. A borehole tops up the lake in the hot summer months (we managed to find a river running underground) and the lake was planted with 2000 natural English pond plants (you could be mistaken for thinking the lake had been here for fifty years). Ultrasonics ensure the water remains free from blanket weed and two aerators circulate and oxygenate the water, maintaining the quality which is crystal clear.

Stocked with trout and male carp (by stocking with male carp we can control the fish numbers and ensure the water stays clear) the lake provides excellent fishing. The lake has a fishing hut, floating pontoon with a swimming ladder and rowing boat.  Two living willow hides allow close observation of the wildlife which because we are close to the Somerset levels is abundant. Kingfishers, teal and tufted duck, reed bunting, water voles  and otters have all been recent visitor and the water and reeds teem with water shrimp, snails, dragon and damsel flies. As the saying goes….’just add water’!

  • 2.5 acre fishing and swimming lake with island
  • 2 living willow hides
  • fishing hut
  • pontoon
  • wildlife pond
  • willow walk and rifle ramge
  • trout fishing
  • rowing boat