Two-Tone Indian Sandstone Patio

The rear garden of this Kent home was a patchwork: broken concrete flags at one end, tired block paving at the other, and bare compacted soil in between where nothing had ever grown. The garden room at the top of the plot was barely used because getting to it meant crossing uneven ground.

The clients wanted one continuous surface running the full length of the garden, from the back of the house to the garden room and pergola, laid at a level that worked with the raised brick border on one side and the fence line on the other. They also wanted the space to read as more than a slab of paving, so we set out two tones of stone rather than one.

We lifted every one of the failed flags and the old block paving, breaking out the bedding beneath so we could reset the levels properly rather than laying new stone over old problems. A compacted MOT type 1 sub-base was laid across the whole garden and set to falls running away from the house and the garden room.

The paving is riven Indian sandstone in two tones, laid in a random multi-size pattern. Silver grey runs across the main body of the garden, with a warm buff band picking out the route to the garden room and the area under the pergola, so the space is divided visually without any change in level or any physical barrier. Every slab is laid on a full mortar bed, not spot-bedded, and pointed with a flexible jointing compound that resists frost and weeds.

Gravel margins run along the fence line and against the raised brick border, taking up the awkward junctions cleanly and giving surface water somewhere to go. The finished patio runs uninterrupted from the house to the top of the garden, and the garden room is now part of the garden rather than something at the end of it.