Patios in Stourpaine

Clearing the ground comes first. In a Stourpaine garden, old concrete, cracked flags on a sand bed, a brick terrace that has sunk, a raised bed or a set of roots all come out before anything is set out. We dig to firm formation, not to a fixed depth, and the spoil is loaded to a grab lorry or a skip and leaves with us the same week.

The base. A geotextile separator on soft ground, then MOT Type 1 in compacted layers of about 100mm. Hardcore tipped in one lift and given a single pass looks the same on the day and is the reason a patio is rocking three winters later.

Sandstone and limestone. Riven sandstone in the browns and buffs sits comfortably beside brick, flint and thatch, which is why it suits Stourpaine so well. It is porous, so it wants a sealer if you are worried about stains, and it will green on a north wall. Limestone is quieter and more uniform but marks with iron.

Porcelain and granite. Calibrated twenty millimetre porcelain is dense, takes almost no water and stays clean, and in a muted riven effect it can look right in Stourpaine where a bright grey sawn finish would not. It must be laid on a full bed of mortar over a slurry primer, never on dabs. Granite setts and flags are the hardest wearing of the natural stones and suit an edge or a threshold.

Falls, levels and the damp course. Paving is set to fall away from the building rather than run along the wall, and it finishes two courses below the DPC where the garden allows it, which is what Approved Document C asks for. Where the garden is higher, we buy the clearance with a step, a retaining edge and a channel across the threshold. The water then has to go somewhere on your own ground: a gully that still runs, a soakaway where the ground will take it, or a permeable build so the runoff never reaches the lane.

Edges, steps and retaining. Edging bedded and haunched, a coping on a low retaining wall, a kerb line where the paving meets grass, and a gravel border along the house. On a plot that falls away, the steps and the level changes are set out first, because they decide how the whole terrace reads.

Jointing. Hand pointing in a mortar matched to the stone, or a brush in compound worked deep into a full joint. Porcelain takes a grout designed for a dense unit. A short joint lets water into the bed and brings back the algae, the weeds and the frost lifting.

Repairs. A rocking slab re-bedded, a sunken bay rebuilt, cracked units replaced, tired jointing raked out, and a slippery terrace cleaned and its falls corrected.

Thomas prices the patio himself. He checks the levels against the damp proof course, looks at how the garden drains, and works out how stone and spoil get in and out.

The quote on paper breaks it down: digging out and carting the spoil away, the compacted sub-base, the fall and where the rain goes, edgings and any steps, the paving you have picked, and the jointing. On a Stourpaine patio, Thomas is who you deal with from the first spade to the last joint.

If the only way in is a side passage or through the house, the quote says so, boards and sheets go down, and everything is barrowed by hand. Slabs are stacked where they will not mark the lawn. The site is swept each day and the spoil leaves with us. Should the spade find an old concrete base, a drain or big roots, you get a picture and the extra figure, and it is your call.

Paving a back garden is ordinary permitted development, and paving is not building control work, although drainage tied into an existing drain is. If your house is listed, work in its grounds can need listed building consent, and Dorset Council holds that record. The village is also in the Stourpaine Conservation Area, so ask them before you take down a wall or change a frontage.

Ring rather than use the form. A corner that has lifted, a step that has dropped or a patio gone green and slick in the shade are all trips waiting to happen, and they get worse over a wet winter.

Put a pot on the loose slab and keep children off the steps until it is fixed. On the first visit we lift and relay the worst of it where the base allows, and check whether the rest has gone underneath. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Should the phone go unanswered, we call back as soon as we are free.

Call now: 07435 839745

A conservation area does not stop you laying a patio. What it does is put the appearance of anything visible from the street into the balance. In Stourpaine that catches front terraces, parking bays, steps up from the lane, and the boundary walls and railings that go with them. Behind the house, out of sight, the ordinary rules apply.

The parts that surprise people are not the slabs. Taking down a section of an old wall to widen an opening is controlled in Stourpaine, and so is work to a tree, which needs written notice to the council before anybody touches it. That matters for a patio because roots and overhanging branches are usually the first thing in the way of a dig. The Planning Portal covers walls and gates and the boundaries between what is permitted and what is not.

What it changes for us is the specification rather than the build time. We keep the historic wall wherever it can be kept, work the dig around a root plate instead of cutting through it, and steer the material towards a riven stone or a muted porcelain that sits with the brick and flint around it.

Nearby places we also cover for patios, with straight-line distances from Stourpaine, and the other trades we offer in Stourpaine itself.

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