Stonebridge Arrival

The house is the best kind of traditional: heavy stone, deep eaves, proper proportions. The arrival was not — a stamped-concrete drive from the nineties, heaved and faded, with foundation shrubs from the same era. The owners asked for an entrance that would 'look like it was always here', terraced grade at the front door, and planting their grandchildren could climb through.

The drive was re-laid as full-range granite setts in a fan-and-band pattern — small units on a big drive, so the surface reads as texture from the street and craft from the door. At the entry, the grade breaks into two low terraces held by dry-laid granite walls, with thermal bluestone treads floated over the steps.

Planting is estate grammar: a linden allée pacing the drive, boxwood structure at the terraces, hydrangea in generous, unclever masses. Nothing rare, everything permanent.

Sixteen weeks and just under 200 tonnes of stone. The setts were laid by two masons working from the centreline out, snapped to string every course; the retaining terraces are dry-laid with a concealed concrete core so they read as garden walls, not engineering.

We phased the work so the family never lost their front door: temporary access on plates down the service side, the main drive rebuilt in halves.