Shallow steps for toddlers, a deep end for teenagers and a terrace for everyone else. How we plan a pool to suit the next twenty summers, not just the first.
Most families who call us have children under ten. By the time the pool has settled into the garden, those children are teenagers with friends round, and in another ten years there may be grandchildren. A pool is one of the few things in a garden that has to work for all of them.
Start with the shallow end
We nearly always draw a wide set of steps across the full width of the shallow end, four treads deep. Toddlers sit on the top one, swimmers use them to get in slowly, and on hot evenings the adults end up sitting on them with a drink. We keep the shallow end at about 0.9 metres, so an eight-year-old can stand with their shoulders out of the water.
A deep end that grows with them
Teenagers want to jump, so the deep end needs to be properly deep: 1.8 metres at least, and two metres if there is room. We slope the floor gently between the two ends rather than adding a sudden drop, which is safer for younger swimmers and makes the pool feel calmer to look at.
“The best pools we have built are the ones the family still uses every day, twenty years later.”
A terrace for everyone else
The people who don’t swim still want to be near the water. We give the sunny side of the pool a terrace at least three metres deep, so there is room for a table, a few loungers and a towel rail without anyone stepping over anyone else.
What we usually suggest
- Shallow end
- 0.9 m
- Deep end
- 1.8 to 2.0 m
- Steps
- Full width, four treads
- Terrace
- 3 m on the sunny side
