We supplied uncoated Thermo-Frake decking for this natural swimming pool and sauna garden project.

This project forms part resplendent hilltop garden where a rectangular, stone-edged pool looks out across open countryside.

Like our North Yorkshire pool project, this garden was designed and built by Natural Swimming Pools Ltd, the Biotop partner that has been building chemical-free, biologically filtered pools across the UK since 2001.

The boards we supplied form a poolside deck, a walkway along a wildflower meadow and a second deck around a sauna and sunken plunge pool.

Firstly, at one end, a Thermo-Frake deck runs right to the water's edge in place of stone coping, with room for loungers and a parasol.

The boards are laid in framed panels that alternate in direction. From there, a straight decking walkway follows the edge of a wildflower meadow to a second, square deck.

Hidden amongst the trees sit a sauna and plunge pool.

Here, a further Thermo-Frake deck is set among ornamental grasses in front of the timber sauna cabin, with the stainless steel plunge pool sunk flush into the boards.

Frake (also known as limba) is a West and Central African hardwood.

Once thermally modified using only heat and steam, it becomes Thermo-Frake. The process raises the timber to durability class 1/2 (very durable to durable) under EN 350.

It also makes the wood more dimensionally stable, so the boards move less as they get wet and dry out – a particular consideration in a project like this.