Essex garden’s natural swimming pool features on BBC’s Gardeners’ World

A STUNNING Stebbing garden which boasts a natural swimming pool as its unique selling point has been featured on the BBC’s flagship gardening programme.

Liz and Pete Stabler were “surprised but delighted” that their Snares Hill Cottage home, in Duck End, received an invitation to appear on Gardeners’ World.

One of the show’s presenters, Alys Fowler, and a camera crew paid a visit last month as part of a feature on natural swimming pools - and it was broadcast last week.

“It was unexpected but very special,” said Liz. “We love our garden but we never dreamed that it was Gardeners’ World material. To be on the show was fabulous.

“All the crew were lovely but Alys was particularly charming and very natural. She even took a dip in the pool.”

Split into several small areas, the one-and-a-quarter acre garden at Snares Hill Cottage has many features, including a natural bog garden, fern and fountain gardens, an apple orchard, and a fascinating beach garden complete with a beach hut and boat stranded on a pebble beach.

But it is the natural pool which is the jewel in the crown.

“We installed it four years ago as a celebration of our first grandchild,” said Liz.

“We were going to go for a normal swimming pool but came across a website about natural pools – they are not too popular in this country but it just sounded so unusual and looked beautiful.

“My husband swims in it every day, except in the winter, and we always take a dip on Christmas Day. It is certainly a unique selling point.”

Snares Hill Cottage is being opened up to the public once again as part of the National Garden Schemes (NGS) on Sunday September 12, from 10am to 4pm.

Admission is �3.50, children go free. Home-made cakes and teas will be on offer.

l The NGS supports a number of charities including Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie Cancer Care and Help the Hospices. Essex NGS raised more than �100,000 last year, a record amount, from gardens opened to the public.