How the ‘Picasso of ponds’ went from shaping golf courses to making freshwater homes for wildlife

Shaun Hancox has created scores of ponds for rewilding projects across Britain – and he says there’s a lot more to it than digging a hole He is known as “the Picasso of ponds” but the tableaux being created by Shaun Hancox in a boggy field in Somerset currently looks more like a building site. An orange and black excavator is rhythmically removing lumpy clay soil and sculpting it into brown banks. The result looks like a scar of bare earth on what was once green pasture – but the magic happen...

By Patrick Barkham