Old clay pit in Dorset turned into replica of Monet's Water Lily Pond

Getting your Monet’s worth! Former clay pit in Dorset is turned into a stunning replica of the French impressionist’s masterpiece The Water Lily Pond

• Claude Monet’s The Water Lily Pond has been recreated in Weymouth, Dorset
• In 1999, the family that own the gardens decided to create the Japanese bridge

Every year, thousands make the pilgrimage to Claude Monet’s home in northern France, or Parisian museums where his artworks hang.

But now the setting of the Impressionist’s idyllic lily pond paintings – at his house in Giverny – has been recreated in Dorset.

Coach-loads of visitors turn up in flowering season to wonder at the colourful replica at a former clay pit in Weymouth, which became Bennetts Water Gardens 64 years ago.

Founder Norman Bennett’s great-granddaughter Isla, 19, is the fourth generation of the family to work at the eight-acre site, which is also the National Plant Collection of Water Lilies with over 300 varieties. 

The family decided to build a replica of the garden’s famous Japanese bridge in 1999.

Founder Norman Bennett’s great-granddaughter Isla (pictured), 19, is the fourth generation of the family to work at the eight-acre site

The family decided to build a replica of the garden’s famous Japanese bridge in 1999 (pictured)

Isla helps run the shop while her father James, 44, looks after the lilies, and his parents Angie, 72, and her husband Jonathan, 73, own the site.

Angie Bennett said: ‘We get wonderful comments. People say it’s fantastic because it’s so like the real thing – but without the crowds.’

Jonathan grows the same types of lilies in the pond that are found in Monet’s garden.

But there’s one thing he can’t quite emulate – the old weeping willow that stands on one side of the bridge is on the opposite side to the original.

Railway sleepers used to link the two sides of the lake until the Bennetts decided to commission the new bridge in 1999, leading to a doubling of visitors.

Around 25,000 come every year now – while Monet’s own garden attracts 500,000.

In 2014, the Radio Times accidentally featured the Dorset version in a travel promotion to visit the lily pond in Giverny.

Monet immortalised the scene in a series of 18 paintings over a 20-year period from 1899. He died in 1926.

In 2018, a water lily painting from the collection of US investment banker David Rockefeller sold at auction in New York for $84.7 million (£66.1 million).

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