Construction starts on the lake...

After deciding on where the lake was going to go, based on aesthetics as well as more practical reasons such as the lay of the land, we pegged out the outline of the lake. It was designed to have a kidney shape to it to allow for a small promontory to protrude into the middle of the kidney shape, upon which a Graeco-Roman rotunda will be built. Here are some examples:

I visited The Temple of Eros (above) at Le Chateau de Versailles, developed for Marie Antoinette, in the summer of 2007. My photos are below.

But probably the most famous example of an 18th century lake-side folly is that of the Temple of Apollo, at Stourhead (pictured below). The gardens at Stourhead were designed by Henry Hoare II and laid out between 1741 and 1780. The estate originally belonged to the Stourton family for over 700 years, until they were sold to Henry Hoare I. They now belong to the National Trust.

Most of these glorious monuments to craftmanship and architectural taste have been purchased and are maintained for the pleasure of future generations by The National Trust.

On a slightly less grand note, today the digger started work on our lake. Our lake is about a 1/2 acre in area. The rough excavation of the lake is expected to be finished by next week. Here are some photos taken early in the morning of the progress so far, and a video of the digger:

The view we hope to achieve looking back towards the house will be something like this: