Natural Swimming Pools & Garden Landscapes
Fifteen years ago, my husband Will and I trained as water specialists with natural pool pioneer Biotop. We constructed our first natural swimming pool in our garden and set up our company, Ellicar, to design and build natural pools for private homes and public spaces.
Today we’re renowned for the design and installation of some of the world's most beautiful natural swimming pools. Read More...
Officially she's a landscape designer and natural pool specialist. Unofficially she describes herself as a wild swimmer, avid gardener, animal lover, and dedicated goat keeper with a prize-winning herd of Golden Guernsey goats.
Gardening has always been Sarah's escapism and in 2001, she combined her creativity and love of gardens to retrain as a garden designer and set about transforming domestic gardens and public landscapes. Read More...
Water specialist Will is co-owner of Ellicar and our finance manager. But it's not all spreadsheets – Will is the one who reliably gets into our pools in winter for any special maintenance requirements, usually without a wetsuit. Thankfully he enjoys cold water swimming as well as wild swimming!
Will is also a nurseryman, horticulturalist plant health specialist and rhododendron expert. In his downtime and when he's not in water, Will enjoys cycling, wildlife, feeding Ellicar's wild birds and family BBQs.
Our accounts administrator Nicola keeps our day-to-day finances in order. Reconciling accounts, processing payments and making sure our records are up to date are all in a day's work for Nicola, keeping us on the straight and narrow.
Founder and managing director Sarah is our garden and pool designer. She meets and consults with every client and starts every project with a concept plan, followed by detailed construction designs and pool hydraulics. She designs our planting schemes too.
Beyond design, Sarah spends time on-site with our soft landscaping team and checks in regularly with the pool construction team. So you can be sure each project gets special care and attention from start to finish.
Paul is our landscape architect and technical designer. He models all our pools and ponds from 2D concept plans to 3D models, bringing them to life as works of art. Working with our structural engineer, Paul then details the construction plans.
As a valued construction specialist and international sketch-up expert, Paul likes a challenge, including all those tricky-to-build features such as rope bridges, floating pontoons, and hidden fixings over the liner.
Landscape administrator and design assistant Catherine expertly draws up technical plans, visuals and pool hydraulics. She details our planting plans, manages our plant orders and looks after our plant stock. Catherine also assists with project logistics.
As an ecologist and wildlife enthusiast, Catherine enjoys carrying out site assessments too. Her tree and ecology surveys before and after our projects are vital to helping us monitor the net wildlife gain.
Catherine also feeds rescue hedgehogs that are soft released into our garden from the local hedgehog rescue centre.
Our site managers, George and Chester, head our pool construction teams building and installing our natural swimming pools, ponds and gardens on-site.
George joined the family business at 17. Learning the ropes on-site, George is particularly skilled at technical pool installation, lining and pipework, and his experience spans landscaping too.
Being super organised and calm, George brings our projects together with an attention to detail that makes sure they're finished to a high standard and on time.
When he's not on-site, George can be found wild swimming, bouldering and climbing, skiing or at the gym with his brother.
Chester joined Ellicar with a BEng in Chemical Engineering and wears several hats. As well as site manager, he's head of construction, our hydraulics specialist, deck specialist and a pool builder. With an eye for detail, he's meticulous when it comes to deck construction and materials – you'll never see a screw that isn't perfectly aligned!
Chester is extremely driven and continually strives for excellence, developing systems and techniques to improve on-site efficiency and deliver world-class pools.
Beyond his love of the latest power tool, Chester likes to wild swim, fish, ski, spend time in the gym and walk his spaniel, Lily.
Our highly skilled pool builders Georgie, Terry, Aidie and Kev turn their expert hands to every type of natural pool and the precise construction methods that make our pools world-leading. Their multidisciplinary work ranges from excavation, groundworks and construction to plumbing, lining, bespoke decking, paving, grading, drainage and pool finish.
Whatever the weather, the team travels far and wide across the UK to build our bespoke pools. Even a downpour doesn't stop them – they simply put up the awnings and carry on!
Despite lots of travelling, long days and physical labour, the camaraderie on site is incredible. But then, they are an incredible team of very talented individuals.
Led by Sarah, our soft landscaping team comes in after the pool and garden construction is complete. With expert know-how and years of experience, they prepare the ground, plant trees and borders, lay the turf, seed meadows, spread bark mulch and finish off the gardens ready for our clients to enjoy for years to come.
If you'd be interested in joining our award-winning team, check out the careers page for current vacancies.
