Antique Limestone Rectangular Garden Trough Planter

An antique limestone trough bleached almost white by the sun, with thick outer walls full of deep pits and irregular edges that catch the light. Inside the wide basin the floor has gone dark with weathering, a sharp break from the chalky exterior, and a drainage hole has been bored straight through one of the long side walls.

It measures 48 inches wide, 20 inches deep and 16 inches high: a manageable size for a terrace or a roof garden that can carry the load, and a proportion that works as either a planter or a shallow pool. It is a European farm piece, 18th or 19th century by type, with the drainage hole ready for a fitting or a cork.

It works as a low reflecting pool in a courtyard, as a quiet fountain beneath a simple wall spout, or as a herb trough outside a kitchen door. On square stone pavers the uneven base shows; against dark metal or glass the bone-white stone looks paler still. A stone trough this pale wants a little shade in a hot garden. This limestone trough has sold. Small pale troughs of this size are the ones that go fastest; ask and we will send what is current from the yard or the water.