This front garden in Caterham was designed to comfortably accommodate an extra car space. Like so many areas, pressure on parking is increasing. The brief was to make the garden look good when no cars are on the drive, as nobody really wants their front garden to look like a car park.
This is the before pic:
Caterham has quite a rural feel to it, and my client wanted to use materials with a similarly natural look. We chose Horsham Stone for the main area. It is quarried in yes you guessed, Horsham, in Sussex and is unique to the area. The only supplier in the country is in Broadbridge Heath, their website is: www.horshamstone.co.uk.
The stone is an attractive golden colour, which ages to brown. It is similar to Yorkstone, but has unique riven quality, reflecting the ripples of the riverbed that it was once part of. It is very thick and heavy, extremely durable for a drive. It can be bought in crazy paving style, as here, or cut to flags (which are much more expensive).
Crazy paving still suffers from the image of cheap concrete, laid in the seventies and eighties, and this puts many people off. However it is coming back into fashion! Our age of recycling has put crazy paving back in the frame, and it has been showcased beautifully at eg the Chelsea flower show in recent years. More on that later!
Back to the garden, the brick path to the front door breaks up the drive, and the flint chippings circle has low growing campanula, toadflax and violas planted in it, in keeping with the country look.
I am pleased to report that the garden has had many passing admirers, and the main thing is, my client loves it. I love it too.