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Marshalls Register Award for Best Driveway Transformation over 70m

January 15, 2019

Urban Landscape Design Ltd are delighted to have won The Marshalls Register Regional Award 2018/19 for Best Driveway Transformation over 70m, and here’s how we did it-

Materials Used:

Marshalls Tegula paving in Harvest and Autumn (approx. 1000m²)
Marshalls Pennant Grey Tegula kerb (approx. 350Lm)

This driveway is the largest in Urban Landscapes’ history measuring 1400m² in total completed in August 2018.

Urban Landscapes were awarded the contract at Kermincham in 2015. The project was to design and build within a five acre site the following:

Small lakes linked with swales
Large orchard
Kitchen garden
A large woodland area
Planting, seeding and a wild flower meadow
Large driveway with electronic gates.

The logistics of ensuring all the elements of the driveway build were in place in advance were key. Liaison with suppliers and detailed planning was critical as we had an immovable deadline of a family wedding at the property on 2^nd September 2018. So, we had to accommodate all wedding deliveries around our work on the driveway too!

Marshalls helped with the storing of the specially manufactured

materials and held all blocks for 12-15 months at Ramsbottom

so all matched as closely as possible and were all the same batch number.

Managing all movements to and from site and keeping all associated records together with providing logistics instruction to all suppliers including Marshalls ensured the project ran as smoothly as possible. We had an added element of the family actually living in the property throughout the works so we had to install ramps on and off the paving as we departed each evening to ensure the family had a functional driveway.

During the works the three different sizes and two different colours were handpicked from different packs to create the best-looking blend of material – the mixing of the colours and sizes proved quite challenging as it had to be a mix of the different colours and the laying pattern of large/medium and jumper block. Small sized blocks were not used as we felt this would make the driveway pattern too “busy” visually.

The actual construction of the driveway drainage was a specific challenge as the water table was only 750mm below ground level. We had to harvest the water in shallow aquacrates and installed 6,000 litres worth of run off in total.

At the end of the driveway there were four quadrants making up the turning circle at the front of the house. These were lined with Pennant Grey block and matched with grey gulley chambers made to the same size as the block paving band along the perimeter ensuring this didn’t encroach into the Autumn and Harvest mixed Tegula blocks within the driveway.

The quadrant design of the courtyard consisted of an inner and outer circle – with a water feature in the middle. The challenges here consisted of ensuring that whilst setting the centre circle all the quadrants fell at the same ratio to the outside circle giving equal water run off to the aquacrates. Each quadrant paving pattern was laid at a right angle to the next which has made a fantastic visual impact.

As anyone in our industry knows we had very hot weather during July and August 2018 which meant we had health and safety considerations on site e.g. ensuring a continually hydrated team and ensuring sun cream was available. There is no doubt that very hot sunny weather slows down landscaping work but the team worked weekends to ensure the project ran on time.

To accommodate the soft landscaping materials of which there were approximately 300 tons of topsoil and 5,000 plants and trees from Ladybrook Nursery all arriving on site whilst constructing the driveway was a challenge in itself. Add to this a constant stream of wedding deliveries such as food and wine, nail technicians, flowers arrangements, beauty therapists, wedding planners all flowing through the site whilst we finished the driveway made for an unforgettable project!

The entrance to the drive was paved using Pietra Pave, a natural granite paving system from Bannister Hall and the wrought iron gates and railings were designed and manufactured locally.