Burnside Cottage,Kilsyth Start Date 14th November 2006

This is a large garden of a beautifully renovated country cottage near Kilsyth. We will be creating a walled patio and seating area and building a new lower level terrace to help blend the upper and lower levels in the garden. The paving will be jet black limestone with granite sett spiral inlays cut into it with white loose pebbles. There will be a 12 metre long pond with decking sitting over the edge next to a summer house. The pond will have stepping stones through the water from a sepentine path leading to the summerhouse. The style will be a careful blend of traditional and contemporary achieved by combining natural materials and strong shapes.

2nd December

We had to install an extensive and deep drainage system around the pond area due to the high water table. The pond is quite large being about 12 metres long and 4-5 metres wide. It filled in almost immediately with water as soon as it was dug out. So we used an industrial pump to pump out the water in order to locate the main areas of water ingress.

We could see that our pond hole was lower than the nearby field drain and is was partly to blame. There was also a clay pan which had a layer of horizontally flowing water above it. There were also several old field drains seeping water in. We needed to lower the water level of the field drain to drain our drainage system into so we used a 5 Tonne digger to clear out all the debris and deepen the drain for about 20 metres downstream.

This did the trick and our water is now draining away from our pond area and into the burn.

We are now able to fill the pond up without the upward pressure of the water from underneath the liner lifting the liner up out of the hole!

Monday 4th December

The pond has a natural sandstone edge set in around it interspersed with large round boulders. The foundation for the hut is in and preparations underway for the decking which will sit over the pond in front of the summerhouse. The decking will also have a couple of large boulders cut into it for added interest and to provide an informal seat.