Driveways in Sixpenny Handley
Gravel, resin and block paving from the village out to the farms and lanes around it. We dig a trial hole and take levels before anyone talks about a price.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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On a village drive up at Sixpenny Handley it is nearly always the first few metres that have failed, not the whole surface. Rebuilding the entrance, the edge and the fall costs a fraction of relaying everything behind it, and it is the part that actually stops the stone escaping.
In Sixpenny Handley the gravel entrance is usually where the trouble begins. Gravel keeps washing out of an entrance and ending up on the lane, so it needs sweeping back every few weeks and the drive thins where you turn. A long entrance has been rutted and potholed by an oil tanker, a horsebox or a delivery lorry, and the puddles have started to hold.
Or a front garden needs turning into somewhere a car can stand and turn, so nobody has to reverse out blind onto a road that traffic comes round quickly. We come out, walk the whole length of it, dig a trial hole where the wheels actually sit and take levels off the doorstep and the road. Then you get an itemised written quote with the excavation, the sub-base, the edgings, the drainage and the surface on separate lines.
The work
Long entrances, loose stone and the lane at the end of it
Entrances that lose their stone onto the road. Most drives in Sixpenny Handley run straight off a lane with no kerb and no footway, and the first three or four metres do all the suffering. Every car pulling out carries gravel with it, and what leaves your drive ends up in the verge or the ditch.
The repair is an edge restraint haunched in concrete, not pushed into soft ground, a bound margin of tarmac or resin across the stretch nearest the road so nothing can travel, a crossfall that sends water into a border instead of out of the gate, and a channel drain at the entrance where the ground runs the wrong way, with a soakaway or an outfall to take what it collects.
Ruts and potholes on a drive that takes real weight. A heating oil tanker or a feed lorry is a different load from a car, and rutting is almost never a surface problem. We excavate to a firm formation, lay a geotextile membrane where the ground is soft, then build a compacted sub-base in layers at a depth set by what is actually carrying the weight. A thin one is potholes again by the second winter, whatever went on top of it.
A good many frontages here are walled in brick and flint and the wall is worth keeping, so where a front garden becomes parking we form the opening, rebuild the returns properly so there is no raw end, and set the levels so surface water stays on your side.
Patios go on a full mortar bed, never five dabs, with the finished level clear of the damp proof course and a gravel margin along the wall. The jointing is pointed, not filled with a kiln dried sand that washes out, opens the joint and lets weed in. There is no street lighting down most of these lanes, so even risers and a surface with grip on it in the wet matter more than they would in town, and under trees a textured stone earns its money where a smooth flag stays damp. For a terrace at the back, see patios in Sixpenny Handley.
How it runs
Laying a drive on the Chase, from the dig to the edging
Thomas Hannen comes to the house and walks the ground with you. He looks at the levels, where rain runs now, how a lorry and digger would get in, and what the surface is sitting on. Chalk ground often drains well, but a drive that sheds onto the lane still has to be dealt with, and plenty of entrances here come straight off a narrow road.
The written quote splits out excavation, muck away, the sub base, edgings, the surface and the drainage. You deal with one company from the first dig to the last swept joint. Spoil goes away in a grab lorry and never sits in a heap on your frontage, the road is swept each evening, and you can still get in and out on foot throughout. If digging turns up an old soakaway, a buried tank or soft ground, we stop, take a picture and give you the cost before going deeper.
Relaying an existing surface is maintenance. New hard surfacing over five square metres at the front is permitted development only if it is permeable or drains onto your own ground, and Planning Portal sets out that test. A new opening onto the lane needs dropped kerb consent from the highway authority. Dorset Council handles planning, and a wall or step attached to a listed building needs listed building consent.
Cost
Ground, dig depth and spoil: pricing a drive up here
A driveway is not priced by the square metre. What is underneath decides much more than what goes on top.
The dig. How deep we have to go to reach firm ground, and how much comes out, is the biggest variable. A drive over old concrete means breaking it out first. A grass verge turned into parking means stripping topsoil. All of it is weighed up at the survey, not on the morning.
Getting the lorry in. A cottage with its front wall on the street, a bungalow with a wide gravel sweep, and a house at the end of a shared track are very different for delivery and muck away. A narrow lane may mean smaller loads and more trips.
The sub base and the surface. Gravel, block paving, tarmac and resin all need a proper sub base, compacted in layers, and they cost different amounts to lay. Block paving takes more labour. Gravel needs good edging to stay put on a slope.
Drainage. Rain has to be dealt with on your land, not run into the lane. That may mean a permeable build-up, a channel drain or a soakaway.
Ask any other quote how deep they will dig, what sub base is going in and how thick, where the water will go, and who takes the spoil away.
If it is urgent
Gravel on the lane, a lifted block or a puddle by the door
A driveway rarely has a true emergency, but some things should not wait. A lifted block or a sunken patch by the front door is a trip. Water pooling against the house can find its way through the wall.
Gravel washing out of the entrance onto the lane is a risk to anyone driving round the bend. If it is a trip hazard, mark it or cover it until we come. On the first visit we lift and relay the worst of it or clear a blocked channel, and then price a proper fix. Booked work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If it is urgent, give us a ring instead of using the form; if we cannot pick up, we get back to you as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
You are inside a National Landscape, and that reaches the frontage
Sixpenny Handley sits inside the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, and the practical effect is narrower than people fear. It does not tell you what to lay on a back garden patio and it does not stop you building a drive.
What it does mean is that anything visible from the road gets looked at more carefully than it would elsewhere: the width of a new opening, the height and material of a boundary wall, whether a hedge or a bank comes out, and how much of a frontage ends up as hard surface. Listed buildings are scattered through the parish too, but for most addresses this is the constraint that actually applies.
The useful move is to settle the entrance before anyone prices a surface, because it can change the whole design. Keeping the existing gateway and turning behind it is usually cheaper and easier to get agreed than widening onto the lane.
A gravel or a muted block reads better against flint and brick than something bright, and a permeable build-up keeps the job inside permitted development while dealing with the water at the same time. Where a boundary wall has to be opened, we rebuild the returns in the material that came out of it rather than whatever the merchant has in stock, and we price that part separately so you can see what it is costing.
Who you are dealing with
Drives and paths for Handley, Woodcutts and Pentridge
For a drive or path in Sixpenny Handley, Woodcutts, Pentridge or the lanes towards Tollard Royal, the work comes from our base in Boscombe, 17.1 miles off, and Dorset Council is the authority. Thomas Hannen measures up the ground and sets the price in person.
He owns Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under number 15471719. Checkatrade shows a verified customer's rating of 10 out of 10. We do not charge for the site visit or for the itemised written quote. Before you book a visit in Sixpenny Handley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Sixpenny Handley?
Most repairs in Sixpenny Handley need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.
| Question | In Sixpenny Handley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Sixpenny Handley. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Sixpenny Handley, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Sixpenny Handley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about driveways in Sixpenny Handley
Does the landscape designation change what a drive can look like?
The landscape designation affects how a drive looks, not whether you can have one. Sixpenny Handley sits within the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs landscape, so anything visible from the lane gets closer design scrutiny than the same job would get in a town. In practice that pushes people towards gravel, hoggin or a muted block instead of a wide black apron.
Dorset will tell you what they expect before an application goes in, and it is a short conversation.
The track in is single width. How is material delivered?
In smaller loads, on days we tell you about first. An articulated lorry will not turn on the lanes into Sixpenny Handley, so stone arrives on a six wheeler or a grab and gets tipped in one agreed spot rather than beside the work. From there it is moved by dumper. That means more deliveries and more machine time, so the passing places stay clear and the drop point is fixed before anyone books a load.
Our cottage is listed. Does a new path need consent?
Quite possibly, because listed building consent follows the building and its curtilage rather than stopping at the walls. There are listed buildings across the parish, and where steps, gate piers or an original path form part of the listed structure, lifting them is consented work. If your own place is not listed but stands opposite one, the paving is unaffected. Dorset can tell you which of those two situations you are in.
It is a long way out. Will you still come and look?
Yes. Sixpenny Handley is roughly seventeen miles from our base and we cover it, usually grouping the visit with other work out that way. Thomas comes himself, measures, and looks at how water leaves the plot now. The visit and the written quote cost nothing, and the quote is itemised so the effect of the access is visible.
Why do the ruts come back in the same places?
Because a rut is a sub-base problem showing through the surface. Wheels load the same two lines every day, and if the stone underneath is too shallow or was never compacted in layers it keeps consolidating. Topping up loose stone fills the dip for a season and then it returns. On the entrances around Sixpenny Handley we dig the wheel tracks right out, lay a geotextile over soft ground and build the depth back in layers.
Nearby, and next door
Driveways near Sixpenny Handley
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Get a price for a drive or patio in Sixpenny Handley
Tell us the address and what the drive or the paving is doing now. We will come and look, then put an itemised price in writing. Both cost nothing.