Lymington · 2024 · Infinity edge pool
The River Light
An eighteen-metre pool on the Lymington river, with a Purbeck stone edge that meets the water meadow.
The project
- Location
- Lymington, on the river
- Pool
- 18 × 4 m, 1.2 to 1.6 m deep
- Edge
- Infinity edge to the meadow
- Finish
- Purbeck stone, dark render
- Heating
- Air-source heat pump
- On site
- 16 weeks
- Finished
- May 2024
Richard wanted to swim towards the river, so the far edge of the pool simply disappears into the water meadow.
The garden runs down to the Lymington river and floods most winters. We set the pool on a raised terrace above the highest recorded water, then shaped the lawn so the rise reads as a gentle slope rather than a wall.
The infinity edge spills into a hidden channel under a lip of Purbeck stone. From the house you see one line of water running out to the reeds, and in the evening the pool catches the same light as the river beyond it.
How we built it
Building on a river meadow
Above the highest water
We read forty years of flood records with the Environment Agency and set the pool shell 300 mm above the worst of them.
An edge you never see
The overflow channel sits under a cantilevered lip of stone, so from the house the water simply runs out to the meadow.
Quiet on the river
The heat pump sits in a planted enclosure behind the boathouse, far enough from the water that nobody on the river hears it.
In their words
“Every Friday we had a written update and a photograph. The final price was the price we were quoted in the first week.”
Richard HaleLymington · Infinity edge, 2024
Begin here
Start with a walk round the garden
A first visit is free and unhurried. We’ll look at the light, the levels and the trees, and tell you honestly what’s possible.