Where to find terracotta Grecian Urns?

In the past month two people have asked where I got the grecian urn that I use at the top of my ponds waterfall.

The urn was nothing special, we just hunted around for something suitable in our local garden centre. It is approx 20 inches tall, 15 inches largest diameter, and the neck in the top is about 6 inches diameter, where the water comes out. I suggest going to a fairly large garden centre that will have a good selection of large pots of various types.

We selected a brown clay (terracotta) grecian urn, its sides are about half to three quarters an inch thick, so as to be fairly robust, and withstand the ravages of winter freezing because it will be wet most of the time.

Regarding the issue of "freezing", I only suggest that as something to consider. In fact my urn has survived 4 years of English winters now. Running water doesn't freeze as easily as still water, and our British winters are generally mild compared to other countries.

Of course the decision of which kind of pot to use also comes down to how much the pot is going to cost. You might take the view that it's worth trying and if it comes to an early demise then you just buy another! But if the pot is horrendously expensive then that may not be such a good idea.

The following page which may be of interest to you....
http://www.taylorsgardenbuildings.co.uk/store/customer/product.php?productid=19774&cat=811&page=1

Perhaps you won't need the sump and pump, but they may be able to point you to the suppliers of the actual urns which appear to be specifically designed for water feature use.

An alternative plastic (hmmm?) urn can be found here...
http://www.heavens-solar.com/Waterfeatures/grecianurnwaterfeature.htm

The following web site also looks like it could be useful too. They say they offer the best selection of pots in the UK, including what look like some very nice grecian style urns, terazzo, cretan and spanish terracotta. Could be worth a look. Checkout the "Old urns" section, they are based in Horsham, West Sussex, and will pack and ship anywhere you like.
http://www.terradecorltd.com/

You may be able to ask them about how freeze resistant they are, and also whether they already have holes drilled in the bottom or not. Preferably without so you can drill exactly where you want, otherwise you may have to plug any existing hole.

The tricky part I found was making holes in the bottom for the pipe from the filter. I used 1 inch flexitube piping into it, so it requires a hole of at least that diameter to be drilled. I actually used one of those circular "saw" type hole drills to carefully drill through the clay pot, but this did ruin that particular drill blade (it was an old one so it didn't matter too much). Obviously make sure you mark the pipe inlet hole in the right place, before you start drilling, as a mistake could be costly!

Once it was placed how we wanted it, and water was coming out of it nicely, I added some of the same nylon green scrubbies that I used as the filter media in my main filter, and put them in the "bottom" of the urn (now that it is on its side), so as to allow the urn to also provide a home for bacteria/algae, which aids the bio-filtration process.