How to Build a Wildlife Pond: Part 3 - Installing the Dry Stone Wall

Welcome to part three of the pond build at Gosforth School. Today I'm going to be installing a very short dry stone wall around the shelf under here. It'll be roughly to the height of the next shelf because on the next shelf that's where we're going to be putting the big slabs. I've got a really good range of stones which were selected from the quarry over the last few days and really all I'm looking for is a stone With just one good face and two flat surfaces. As long as it's got a flat surface here and here and a good face, very easy to build a wall with. You can just pick similar height stones and then overlap them with stones on top. If the stones aren't quite level they'll always be pinned from behind so that when you look at the face of the wall you can't see any little stones sticking out. Although I want the wall to look nice, I don't want it made so perfect that things like frogs and newts can't actually get through the wall behind it and into this cavity here which will be a great little habitat for them. So I am leaving the odd little gap between the stones pretty much in the in the bottom layer of stones so that things can get in and hide. The area around this side of the pond is going to have like a beachy sort of effect. So I'm finishing the wall here, adding a little bit more here, and continuing on there just so you have like a two-part beach it would look a bit boring if there was only one long strip of beach so i'm just going to try and break it up a bit then i'm going to put stones on the big shelf inside of here just to retain to like to help to retain the cobbles when we tip them in because i've got loads of stone left certain places around the pond i'm going to make little refuges for amphibians basically just building a very very rough dry Dry stone wall up, but allowing big pockets. Firstly for planting and also for animals to get in and out of these little caves. By doing that gives me little entrance holes here, places to plant and also a solid base to stand on should I need to get in and out of the pond at a later date. Now that I've got the wall of roughly the right height all the way around, I've still got plenty of stone left so I'm gonna break some of it up and use it as packing in the gaps. Obviously I don't want to block all the gaps up but the likes of here Animals can still get in here, but by sticking a stone in there, it'll help to stiffen the wall up. Okay, that's the wall around the outside just about finished. Well, actually it is finished, apart from the capping. I've smashed up bits of stone, put them loosely in the back there, making sure that there's plenty of space for newts and frogs and so on to get in. It's also going to be an excellent habitat for invertebrates, such as freshwater shrimp, freshwater lice, not to be confused with fish lice. Mosquito larvae and all manner of invertebrates which will help to keep the water clear by eating away organic waste in the water. This is the top end. I don't know whether you can see there, there's one, two, three big stones on the shelf. They're going to actually support the uprights for the dipping platform which is going to go on this end. So on this end here there's going to be a dipping platform so the kids can get in and arrive on in the deeper water. There's one, two, three refuges. Made with the excess stone, they'll be planted up, so it's starting to look fairly neat now. This top end here is going to be the beach and by putting stones on the deep shelf that'll help to retain all the cobbles that are going to go on here. So tomorrow in part four I'll be putting some of the edging stones on, cementing those on and also creating the beach. I appreciate the fact that this sort of design probably isn't most people's idea of what a wildlife pond should be. But by providing all of this habitat for wildlife, it's actually going to create a really sustainable wildlife pond. Most people's idea of a wildlife pond would just be a shallow scrape in the ground, lined, filled with water, lined with soil and planted up with the appropriate aquatic plants. There's not actually much habitat there, so by building it this way, It should provide masses of habitat. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in part four, where we'll be putting the edging stone on and making the beach.