Patios & Driveways
Windmill Hill, Bedminster
In the rear garden of this red brick terraced property the client required the entire area to be paved with raised planters surrounding the paving. The garden was split over two levels, the lower level outside the kitchen patio doors and the upper level that backed onto a back passageway that linked all the houses to the street. The upper level sloped upwards to the back gate and consisted of shingle with membrane underneath.
The entire area to pave including the steps totalled 45 squared metres. The choice of stone was decided upon and we sourced Cotswold Indian sandstone paving from Wells Reclamation.
At the lower level we built two rasied planters and between these a reclaimed Oak beam was rested, creating a lovely seating area and garden feature visible from the kitchen. We paved the lower level and rendered the walls before tackling the upper level.
Upon removing the shingle, we discovered that to level the ground and split this into two terraced levels we would have to remove significant amounts of soil, concrete and rubble. This totalled over 12 Tonnes and filled two skips that were located approx 50m away on the street.This was reached through the back entrance passageway and up a flight of steps with all material being removed using wheelbarrows and buckets.
Once level we built raised planters out of concrete blocks which we then rendered and then coped these to create seating areas. We paved the newly divided upper level in a random pattern using a mortar mix of stone dust, sand and cement and also coped the steps leading to the back gate.
The client decided to paint the rendered walls and undertake planting of the raised flower beds.