Landscaping in Northampton, priced in writing before anything starts.
A great many Northampton back gardens were never gardens at all, and that is the single most useful thing to know before designing one.
In the boot and shoe streets the space behind a terrace was a working yard. It was surfaced, built on, used for storage and materials, and in many cases had a workshop at the far end. When somebody turns that into a garden, the topsoil is usually imported and shallow, and underneath it there is frequently old hardstanding, brick rubble from a demolished outbuilding, or the foundations of something that is no longer there.
That matters practically rather than historically. Planting into ninety millimetres of imported soil over a concrete yard will disappoint whatever you spend on the plants. A lawn over buried rubble will dry out and yellow every summer in the same patches. And a base for a garden room may find a redundant foundation that is either a bonus or an obstruction depending on where it sits. We dig a trial hole before designing rather than after.
The rear entries that served those yards are a genuine advantage, since they let a machine and materials reach the garden without going through the house, which is rare in a terraced street.
Front hard surfacing over five square metres needs a permeable material or drainage to a soft area within your boundary, or planning permission. Our landscaping page shows the range of the work.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the West Northamptonshire Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our landscaping page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Northampton street to the next.
Every tree in a conservation area is protected whether or not an order exists, requiring six weeks written notice to the council before even a heavy prune. Removing a protected tree is a criminal offence and the fine can exceed the cost of the whole garden.
Where a plot has a rear entry we will use it, and the price reflects that. Where it does not, material is carried through the house and the price reflects that instead. It is the largest single variable in a terraced garden and we would rather show you both numbers than average them.
Levels and retaining structures are designed and drained rather than stacked, particularly over made ground where settlement is still possible.
Part of our wider building work in Northampton.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
