Paving
Carefully chosen paving can form the framework for a garden, as well as serving the practical purpose of creating spaces that can be used throughout the year. We use a range of different materials for paving, from traditional York stone to cutting-edge, engineered slabs.
New House, New Garden, Balham, London.
The paving slabs for this elegant garden were supplied by Nero Sicilia – a company working exclusively with lava gathered on the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily and fired at 1200 degrees. Some of the slabs contain metal particles, and these bring splashes of vibrant colour to the layout.
A Chiswick hideaway
By reimagining the well-known landscape material, slate, we transformed an ordinary product into something truly extraordinary. Using long slate pieces along the edges of the path where it gracefully bends, with loose slate clippings between, we managed to create a bespoke feature that elevated the overall finish of the hard landscaping.
As the elements, alternate sides as you move along the path, the observer’s eye is guided through the space and drawn along its meandering course. The subtle elements add another layer of interest to the garden, inviting you to closely inspect and appreciate the intricate details.
Edgy Woodland Wonderland
In this garden, we incorporated tiles between the slate clippings along the path’s bends. These tiles were intentionally chosen to match the ones used on the garden’s feature walls. By strategically reusing materials and limiting the material palette, we successfully achieved a sense of unity and harmony throughout the entire space.
A Tapestry of Urban Greenery
The concrete paving creating a terraced expanse near the house, graciously hosts a table and bench set. This area then tapers into a meandering path on to a tranquil seating area at the far end of the garden.
Strategically, we chose to break the up continuity of the paving by introducing another material – slate chippings, placed thoughtfully between spaced pavers. We were able to create a more relaxed, meandering section of path yet still stay within the same colour palette as the rest of the hardlandscaping. The loose chippings introduced a delightful interplay of texture and visual interest amidst the solid material.
The inclusion of this loose material provided an ideal environment for allowing self-seeding plants to thrive between the chippings, seamlessly blurring the boundaries between the hardscaping and the planting. In doing so, we managed to create a softer and more inviting space and effectively mitigate the starkness of the hard landscaping.
Bird’s-eye view, London.
The clean lines of timber decking are particularly effective when seen against the exuberant planting of this garden. We chose narrow boards that would sit well in the garden’s more intimate spaces, and now they are weathering to a silvery sheen in the exposed conditions of a rooftop high over central London.
Blurred boundaries: The Gatehouse, Gerrard Cross.
Reclaimed York-stone slabs sit comfortably in the garden we designed for this country house, seeming to marry well with the planting in each season, and displaying a new palette of colours with every shower of rain.
A terrace with a view: Holland Green Place, London.
Pale and pristine, limestone seemed the only possible choice for the terrace of this apartment in a new development near London’s Holland Park. Both paving and furniture mirrored the minimalist style of the apartment, making the terrace into a seamless continuation of the inside space.
Cool and calm in North London.
We created an impression of greater width in this garden by selecting sleek granite- plank paving from London Stone and laying it across the paths horizontally, leaving the edges jagged to create an eye-catching and intrinsically modern look.
Burst of changing colour, scent and texture: Pelham Crescent, London.
These paths are laid with narrow bricks made Vande Moortel, a brickworks in Belgium run by the same family for nearly 150 years. We softened their impact by choosing two different colours of brick, laying them in an intricate herringbone pattern.
Welcomed by rich scents: Pelham Place, London.
A company called London Stone supplied the beautiful limestone paving slabs we used to create this wonderfully elegant and intimate space behind a Grade ll listed house in South Kensington.
Maximum rewards: Redcliffe Road, London.
Here we forged a link between house and garden by using the same palette of materials, inside and out. Hence the mellow sandstone indoors has become a material for paving and steps in the garden, where it must be specially treated to stop it getting slippery. The design for the three-metre stone bench against the wall mimics that of a bench inside the house.
