Gill M.
Limestone patio, Burneside
“They were the only ones of four who told me what was going under it. Two of the others would not even put the depth in writing when I asked.”
Paving · walling · setts
Stone we can tell you the quarry for.
Every material on this board is priced by the square metre on the page after it, and every one of them is stone we have laid ourselves this year.
Silver grey graniteCumbria · 30mm
Buff limestoneYorkshire · 22mm
Blue-black slateCumbria · 20mm
Porphyry settsReclaimed · 100mm
Materials
What it is, where it came out, what it costs
Prices are per square metre for the stone alone, supplied. Laying is quoted separately and depends on what is under it.
Silver grey graniteShap, Cumbria30mmFlame-textured£68
Buff limestoneHartley, N. Yorks22mmSawn six sides£54
Blue-black slateBurlington, Cumbria20mmRiven, natural cleft£81
Porphyry settsReclaimed, Lancashire100mmAs-found, brushed£47
Grey porcelainCastellón, Spain20mmVitrified, R11 slip£39
Natural stone varies between pallets from the same quarry — that is the material, not a fault. We lay from three pallets at once so the variation is spread across the whole area rather than pooling in one corner.
Below ground
The part that fails is the part you cannot see
A drive fails from underneath. These are the depths we dig to, drawn to scale against each other, and they are in the quotation in writing.
Patio, foot traffic100mm
Type 1 sub-base
Plus 40mm of full mortar bed. Not five dabs of mortar under each corner, which is what lifts.
Drive, cars150mm
Type 1 sub-base
Compacted in two layers, not one. A single 150mm lift never reaches the bottom.
Drive, vans and deliveries250mm
Type 1 over geotextile
Geotextile stops the sub-base pumping down into soft ground over a wet winter.
How it ages
Nobody photographs a patio after four winters
Every paving website shows you the afternoon it was finished. This is the same buff limestone at three ages, which is the thing you are actually buying.
Sharp, even, and slightly darker than the sample — every stone is wet from cutting.
Lightened by about a shade, joints settled, and the first lichen on the north edge.
Fully weathered and, on limestone and slate, better than the day it went down.
What the last three said
Reviews from the people we've worked with.
Andrew P.
Granite drive, Kendal
“Three winters on and it has not moved a millimetre. The drive it replaced was four years old and had sunk at the gate.”
Rhona D.
Setts and walling, Staveley
“I went to the yard and stood on the samples in the rain, which is the only sensible way to choose. Nobody else offered that.”
A written quotation with the depths in it
Measured on site, priced by the square metre, and itemised down to the sub-base depth so you can put it next to anybody else’s and compare like with like.
- Buff limestone, 22mm
- 40m² · £2,160
- Type 1 sub-base, 150mm
- 9 tonnes · £486
- Laying, jointing, disposal
- £3,240
- Total, inc. VAT
- £7,062
Priced from a site measureNorthstone Paving · Kendal · Checkatrade 8814402