I'd agree with philippa. Liner's easier to work with and if you hit rocks or tree roots or anything as you dig, at least you can work round them a bit which is virtually impossible with a preformed pond. I speak from experience...
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I also prefer the liner, though in the pond in my garden it started leaking some time ago some 10 cm below the surface. Will try to replace it next year and make the pond a bit bigger. The only problem is there never seems to be a right time to replace it, because you always risk to disturb the frogs (frogspawn in early spring) either some other interesting animals, either some of the flowering plants or prevent the frogs from overwintering...
The other advantage of liner is that you can work easily with different levels - I was told frogs need some 1.5 m to overwinter properly if it gets really cold. Varying the depth also allows you to include a whole range of different plants. And you can perfectly adapt this to your needs, including e.g. a transition 'swamp'-area with limited depth to make a nice transition to the surrounding garden.
When you build your new pond putting in a good selection of different levels is vital to be able to put a range of plants in the right depth of water for each one. 6",12" and 18" would be a good start. Wildlife all like different levels of the pond too so they can exist in their own small world within your pond. Keep as much as you can - water, plants and creatures and then top up with rain water through the winter and you will be ready for Spring when more wildlife will return to mate. Set it in a planted area with log piles and stone heaps to give them places to hide nearby.
Fab thank you was thinking of doing the pond going from deep to shallow end, so sloped, would this be ok? and was going to have different sized ledges on the side, does that make sense?
A slope - or beach - is perfect for wildlife of all sorts to access the pond. Usually you lay gravel of varying sizes on the slope, with a few rocks etc to make it look as natural as possible. Once you get some planting round about the pond as well as in it you create a lovely habitat for all sorts of creatures and birds. Several forum members have ponds of this sort - Dove has created one this year and I'm sure she'll put a few pix on to give you an idea.
Mine is a tiny one - also just finished - and has shelves for marginals, a gravel slope and a planted area beside it with evergreens for cover , and you could scale it up to any size you wanted. The deepest section is about 2 feet
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
This is the pond that we made this year that Fairygirl was talking about. It's about 2m x 1.5m - it's only about 2ft deep - we couldn't go any deeper because of huge tree roots. Since we made it we've had frogs, toads, newts, dragonflies and a grass snake using the pond.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Cheers Dove- Sbeetle is keen to make something similar so I thought it would help if he saw a few real life ones that members here have done. Perhaps Lyn and Fishy could do the same.
Glad you like my teeny pond Sbeetle. I'm hoping I'll get some visitors next spring! The birds have already made good use of for bathing and drinking
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Posts
I'd agree with philippa. Liner's easier to work with and if you hit rocks or tree roots or anything as you dig, at least you can work round them a bit which is virtually impossible with a preformed pond. I speak from experience...
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I also prefer the liner, though in the pond in my garden it started leaking some time ago some 10 cm below the surface. Will try to replace it next year and make the pond a bit bigger. The only problem is there never seems to be a right time to replace it, because you always risk to disturb the frogs (frogspawn in early spring) either some other interesting animals, either some of the flowering plants or prevent the frogs from overwintering...
The other advantage of liner is that you can work easily with different levels - I was told frogs need some 1.5 m to overwinter properly if it gets really cold. Varying the depth also allows you to include a whole range of different plants. And you can perfectly adapt this to your needs, including e.g. a transition 'swamp'-area with limited depth to make a nice transition to the surrounding garden.
Thank you all for advice
I have informed Dh that we are getting pond liner 
I do want to incorporate different levels and a swarp area so these replies have been fab and just what I needed to convince Dh.
When you build your new pond putting in a good selection of different levels is vital to be able to put a range of plants in the right depth of water for each one. 6",12" and 18" would be a good start. Wildlife all like different levels of the pond too so they can exist in their own small world within your pond. Keep as much as you can - water, plants and creatures and then top up with rain water through the winter and you will be ready for Spring when more wildlife will return to mate. Set it in a planted area with log piles and stone heaps to give them places to hide nearby.
Fab thank you
was thinking of doing the pond going from deep to shallow end, so sloped, would this be ok? and was going to have different sized ledges on the side, does that make sense? 
Just the job Sbeetle
A slope - or beach - is perfect for wildlife of all sorts to access the pond. Usually you lay gravel of varying sizes on the slope, with a few rocks etc to make it look as natural as possible. Once you get some planting round about the pond as well as in it you create a lovely habitat for all sorts of creatures and birds. Several forum members have ponds of this sort - Dove has created one this year and I'm sure she'll put a few pix on to give you an idea.
Mine is a tiny one - also just finished - and has shelves for marginals, a gravel slope and a planted area beside it with evergreens for cover , and you could scale it up to any size you wanted. The deepest section is about 2 feet
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Fairygirl-that looks fab! It looks so calming.
This is the pond that we made this year that Fairygirl was talking about. It's about 2m x 1.5m - it's only about 2ft deep - we couldn't go any deeper because of huge tree roots. Since we made it we've had frogs, toads, newts, dragonflies and a grass snake using the pond.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Cheers Dove- Sbeetle is keen to make something similar so I thought it would help if he saw a few real life ones that members here have done. Perhaps Lyn and Fishy could do the same.
Glad you like my teeny pond Sbeetle. I'm hoping I'll get some visitors next spring! The birds have already made good use of for bathing and drinking
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Dovefromabove-that looks a fab pond! I hope I can achieve something similar
Dh is going to start digging it on Wednesday if weather is ok.