Patio Builders in Marton

Marton's mix of houses

Marton village is old. St Cuthbert's Church, where James Cook was baptised, stands in the village, and the site of the cottage where he was born in 1728 is marked in Stewart Park, beside the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum. Around that core, most of today's Marton was built in the second half of the twentieth century, when private estates spread out along Marton Road, Ladgate Lane, Gunnergate Lane and Brass Castle Lane.

So the typical Marton house is a 1960s, 1970s or 1980s detached or semi-detached home with a garage, a front drive and a back garden of a decent family size. Plenty have been extended, often with a kitchen or garden room across the back, and the original patio is either gone or now sits at the wrong height for the new doors. That is one of the most common jobs we see here: a new patio laid to meet the new floor level, with a step or two down to the lawn.

Larger gardens around Gunnergate Lane and the edge of Stewart Park suit a bigger terrace with a separate path or seating area. In the tighter plots of the later estates, the trick is usually to make a small patio feel generous by choosing larger slabs and keeping the layout simple.

Building on clay

Marton sits on the heavy clay found across south Middlesbrough. It drains slowly, so a patio laid flat or without enough fall ends up with puddles by the door each winter. Clay also moves with the seasons, so a thin base or slabs bedded on a few dabs of mortar will start to rock sooner rather than later.

Our approach is the same on every Marton job. We dig out to firm ground and take the soft topsoil away, put down a compacted crushed-stone sub-base, and bed each slab on a full bed of mortar with a gentle fall away from the house. Where water has nowhere to go, perhaps on a garden that slopes back towards the house, we will talk through a channel drain or a soakaway before anything is laid. And we keep the finished level well below the damp-proof course, which is easy to get wrong when an extension has raised the floor.

Porcelain is the most popular choice outside new glazing because it barely stains and is easy to keep clean. Plenty of Marton owners still prefer the warmth of Indian sandstone, or a good concrete patio slab where the budget needs to stretch further.

Planning and the Marton Village and The Grove Conservation Area

For a normal back garden, a ground-level patio is permitted development and you will not need to apply for planning permission. A raised patio more than 30cm above the ground counts as a raised platform and usually does need it, which is worth knowing on sloping plots. Paving more than five square metres of a front garden in a non-porous material needs permission too, unless the rainwater runs onto a lawn or border.

The older part of Marton is covered by the Marton Village and The Grove Conservation Area. Inside it, trees are protected and you need to give Middlesbrough Council six weeks' notice before most tree work. Listed buildings, including several in the old village, need consent for many changes. If your home is in or near the old village, check with the council before work is booked.

Many Marton gardens step down from the house, and a pair of wide steps with a low retaining wall is often neater and safer than one tall step.

People often ask what a Marton patio will cost. It depends on the area, the material, how much digging the ground needs and whether steps or walls are involved, so we do not quote figures until we have seen the garden. Our guide to patio prices sets out the main factors.

Patios in nearby areas

We also lay patios close to Marton:

• Patios in Nunthorpe: Further south-east towards the hills, with big gardens, mature trees and a conservation area.
• Patios in Coulby Newham: Across Stokesley Road to the west, with compact 1970s and 1980s estate gardens.
• Patios in Ormesby: To the east, where many gardens climb towards Ormesby Bank.

See every place we cover on our areas page.

Questions people ask