Driveways and patios in Cranborne
Gravel and grid parking, brick paths, stone terraces and drives across Cranborne and the Chase villages. Built properly underneath, and chosen to suit the house.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
In a village like Cranborne the surface you choose matters as much as the way it is built, and the two are decided together. We will price a drive that suits the house and the lane it sits on, and tell you honestly what it will look like in five winters rather than on the day we leave.
Three jobs make up most of what we do here. Parking areas that have gone to mud and rutting because cars are standing on grass with nothing underneath them. Brick and stone paths and yards that have sunk, lifted and lost their pointing.
And patios that are too small, in the wrong place, or sitting so high against an old wall that the water has nowhere to go but back into the brickwork. We come out, take levels, look at what the existing surfaces are telling us, and put an itemised written quote in front of you with the excavation, the base, the drainage and the surface all costed separately.
The work
Brick, gravel and grass: what gets laid around Cranborne
Parking on ground that was never built for it. A great many properties here park on grass or on a thin skim of shingle over soil, which works until a wet fortnight turns it into ruts. A cellular grid over a compacted sub-base and a geotextile membrane fixes that without turning the front of a village house into a car park: it stays green, it is permeable, and it carries a vehicle in February. Where a firmer surface is wanted, self-binding gravel over the same base gives a bound, mellow finish that suits a lane better than anything glossy.
Brick paths, yards and thresholds. Old brick paving is worth saving. We lift it, clean it, put a proper base and a full mortar bed under it and relay it on edge or flat as it was, then point it with a mix that suits the wall it runs up to rather than a hard modern one. Reclaimed brick is matched in for the missing pieces, and the result is a path that looks like it has always been there, which is the whole point in a village of this age.
Stone terraces go on a full bed with a fall away from the house, the level kept clear of the damp proof course where the building has one and kept deliberately low where it does not. Long approaches and farm accesses rut where the cross-fall has flattened and the water runs down the wheel tracks instead of off the side; regrading, a fresh compacted sub-base and a gully at the low point normally sorts it. Broken concrete, tired tarmac and spoil leave with us, by grab lorry where one can turn and by skip and barrow where it cannot, and disposal is its own line, because on a rural job with poor access it is a real part of the price.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised, with excavation, muck away, sub base, edgings, surface and drainage on separate lines. Paving a front garden is normally permitted development if the surface is permeable or the water runs to a lawn or a border, with five square metres of solid surface draining to the road as the point where planning permission is needed, and a dropped kerb is applied for separately from Dorset Council. Cranborne sits in its own conservation area, and there are twenty five listed entries in the parish, so before we order anything we check whether the property or its boundary walls and gate piers carry a listing, because that decides what needs listed building consent.
Cost
What decides the price of a driveway
There is no rate per square metre, because what is under the surface decides more of the price than the surface does. A village house that opens straight onto the street, a cottage behind a wall with a narrow gateway, and a property at the end of a long private approach are three different jobs before anybody talks about paving. Surface water has to be dealt with on your own land rather than run out into the lane. Ask what depth, what sub base, whether the edgings are haunched, and who takes the spoil away.
If it is urgent
A trip hazard, or a drive that floods
Phone rather than use the form. A slab that has lifted or a gully that has stopped taking water will not wait. Out here the one that catches people is a track or a yard where the water has found a new route and is now running at a doorway or into an outbuilding. The first visit makes it safe. Outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm is by arrangement.
The one local thing
A conservation area, and 25 listed entries in the parish
Cranborne has its own conservation area, and there are 25 listed entries in the parish, Cranborne Manor House among them. For a drive or a patio that has two practical consequences. The first is that appearance carries weight: replacing like for like is maintenance and rarely troubles anybody, while changing the material, the colour or the line of an approach is a change somebody may have a view on.
It is why gravel, hoggin, brick and muted stone are the safe choices here and bright multi-coloured block paving is not. That is not a rule, it is what tends to get waved through and what tends to get comment.
The second is the boundary. Listing covers the building and can extend to structures around it, so an old wall, a set of gate piers or a railing at the front of a listed house may be listed too. Widening an entrance by taking a pier down is then a completely different proposition from laying paving behind it, and needs listed building consent before anyone touches it.
A conservation area can also carry a direction that removes the usual permitted development rights, so the sensible order is to ring the council with the address first and design the job around the answer. We are happy to hold a start date while that is sorted, and we would much rather do that than dig a hole you have to fill back in.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Cranborne, Alderholt, Sixpenny Handley and the villages along the Chase in BH21, working out from Bournemouth, and Thomas comes out to price the job himself. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Cranborne questions we get asked
Does the Cranborne Conservation Area decide what our drive looks like?
It has a say, because appearance is exactly what it controls. The Cranborne Conservation Area covers the village, so a frontage visible from the street is judged on how it sits with what surrounds it. Renewing gravel with gravel is maintenance. Going from gravel to a black bound surface, or to a strong modern block, is a change of character, and Dorset Council would rather discuss that than discover it.
We are near Cranborne Manor House. Does listing affect our ground?
It can, where you are within a curtilage or attached to something listed. There are twenty five listed entries around Cranborne, the Manor House and a carriage house among them, and listing takes in ground and structures historically attached to a building, not only the walls people live in. Where that applies, a new hard surface next to it needs consent. We establish which side of that line a property is on before pricing.
Can we park on the grass without turning it to mud?
With something under it. Bare grass over freely draining ground copes with an occasional car and gives up under a daily one. A cellular grid filled with soil and seeded, or filled with stone, sits on a compacted base and spreads the load, so the surface stays green and wheels stop cutting ruts into it. In Cranborne that also keeps a frontage looking unpaved, which is the easier conversation in the conservation area.
Where does the water from a new drive go here?
Into the ground, most likely. Cranborne sits on freely draining ground, so a soakaway sited well away from the house and the boundary normally handles a drive's worth of run off and nothing needs piping out to the road. It is still proved with a timed pit before being designed. On a small frontage, a permeable surface doing the soaking itself can remove the need for a separate structure altogether.
Who comes out to price a job this far out?
Thomas Hannen does, and Cranborne is not far enough out to change that. He owns the business, does the measuring and the digging of check holes, and writes the quote, so there is nobody in between to blame afterwards. The visit costs nothing and so does the written itemised quote. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing and Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719.
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Driveways and patios near Cranborne
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Free site visit, free itemised quote, and advice on what will sit right in a conservation area before you commit.