Watering plans

TURN on the fountains!' exclaimed the head gardener of a country house to his gardeners when he realised that an unexpected visitor was none other than the eminent Victorian rose grower and Dean of Rochester Samuel Reynolds Hole.

- Alan Titchmarsh

It reminds us that 'water features' were not invented by television makeover programmes, but, indeed, have their roots in antiquity. Today, they vary in nature from limpid pools to impatient streams; burbling urns that tip their contents into bowl-shaped ponds, and modern stainless-steel blades that can produce unbroken sheets of diamond-clear water to soothe the troubled soul or stimulate the senses, depending on their speed, the lofty heights from which they emerge and the sound they make on reaching their destination.

I am told that, in Japan, there are skilled aquatic engineers whose sole occupation is to tune waterfalls so that they produce a euphonious sound, rather than emulating that of a robust Clydesdale stallion relieving itself and sending those of a certain age rushing for the facilities.