Block paving driveways in Twickenham
Block Paving Driveways Twickenham installs, repairs and re-lays block paved driveways for homeowners in Twickenham.
If you are planning a new driveway, need repairs to your existing paving, or want an older driveway lifted and re-laid, get in touch. We would be delighted to talk through your options, give you straightforward advice and provide a free, no-obligation quote.
Tell us about your driveway and your plans. We’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
A driveway we completed: brindle blocks laid in 45° herringbone, twin charcoal border, linear channel drain along the threshold and a rebuilt brick boundary wall.
- Laying driveways since 1977
- Over 45 years’ experience
- Which? Trusted Trader
- Fully insured
- 30+ 5-star reviews
Your driveway has stopped doing its job
Most people ring us out of frustration with the driveway they already have.
It has gone uneven, so there is a puddle by the front door every time it rains and a dip where the wheels sit. The blocks have faded and the joints are full of weed and moss. The edges have crept outwards and nothing lines up any more. Or there is no driveway at all, just a tired front garden and the nightly hunt for a space three streets away.
None of that is only cosmetic. The frontage is the first thing you see coming home, the first thing a visitor sees, and the first thing a buyer sees. A worn-out driveway quietly makes a well-kept house look neglected.
It usually shows up as a handful of daily irritations:
- It looks tired. Faded, patchy blocks, weeds coming through the joints, moss in the shaded corner and oil marks where the car sits.
- It is uneven underfoot. Rutted where the wheels go, dipped by the garage, and a lip at the threshold that catches the bin every week.
- It holds water. Standing water by the door after any real rain, and a sheet of ice across it in January.
- It no longer fits your life. One car when you now have two, or a space so tight that nobody can open a door without stepping into the border.
All of it is fixable. Often for a good deal less than you would expect, because it does not always mean starting again.
The same frontage finished: flat, draining properly, and framed so it looks like part of the house rather than something laid over the garden.
A driveway you are glad to pull onto
We build you a new block paved driveway that suits the house, parks the cars properly, sheds water where it should, and still looks like this in fifteen years.
That means laying it out around your frontage rather than squeezing it into whatever shape was left over. Choosing a block and a border that sit with your brickwork instead of fighting it. Setting the falls so water goes somewhere sensible. And doing the groundwork underneath properly, because that is the only reason a driveway stays flat.
What you actually notice afterwards is smaller and better than any of that. The bin rolls straight out. There is no puddle at the door. Both cars fit without a negotiation. And the front of your house looks finished.
- Laid out for how you really use the frontage
- Blocks and borders chosen to suit the age of the house
- Falls and drainage designed, not left to chance
- Edges properly restrained so nothing creeps
- Cleared up thoroughly, and we come back to top up the joints
Before, during and after
The same driveway at three stages. Worth looking at the middle picture more than the last one, because that is the bit that decides how the last one ages.
These photographs are of one project completed by our team, shown from three stages of the same job. We would rather show you one driveway properly than a gallery of stock images.
Block paving, and only block paving
We are not a general landscaping firm that also lays driveways. We lay block paved driveways, repair them, and take up the ones that were not built properly the first time.
If resin or tarmac is genuinely the better answer for your frontage, we will tell you that too. We have written an honest comparison of block paving against resin, tarmac and gravel rather than pretend one surface suits every house.
- New driveway installation
A driveway built from the ground up, laid out around your frontage rather than squeezed into it.
- Block paving repairs
Sunken patches, rutted bays, broken blocks and failed edges put right without replacing the whole drive.
- Lifting and re-laying
When the blocks are sound but the base underneath them never was, lifting and re-laying costs far less than starting again.
- Permeable block paving
The surfacing Richmond upon Thames expects, built so rainwater soaks away inside your boundary instead of running into the road.
- Driveway extensions and widening
Room for the second car, with new paving matched as closely as possible to what is already down.
- Groundworks and sub-bases
Excavation, sub-base and compaction. The part nobody ever sees, and the only part that decides whether a driveway lasts.
- Edging, kerbs and boundary walls
Edge restraints, entrance aprons, brick piers and low front walls. What holds the paving in and finishes the frontage.
How simple it is to get a new block paving driveway with us
Three steps, and only the first one needs anything from you.
Step three, in progress. Laying off the bedded edge course, working to a string line.
Tell us about your driveway
Send us a note through the form with roughly how big the area is and what is down at the moment. We reply within 24 hours, and if anything needs clarifying we will ask before arranging to come out.
We come and look, and you get a written quote
We measure up, check the levels between your threshold and the footway, see where water currently goes, and open a small trial hole so we know what the ground actually is. It takes under an hour. You then get a written, itemised quote with the specification stated, and no obligation to do anything with it.
We build it, and clear up properly
Most driveways take three to five working days. We give you a start date and a finish date, everything goes off site, the footway gets swept at the end of each day, and if anything in the ground changes the plan you hear it from us that day rather than at the end. A few weeks later we come back and top up the joints once the paving has settled.
Why trust us with your new driveway in Twickenham
Because a driveway is not a product you buy off a shelf. What you are actually buying is somebody’s judgement about your ground, your levels, your frontage and your council. Here is why ours is worth having.
Because we know what is under your front garden
Twickenham sits on river terrace gravel over London Clay, and which one you have changes the whole specification. We dig a trial hole before we quote, so the depth we price is the depth your ground actually needs. It is the difference between a quote and a guess, and it is why our driveways stay flat. How we do the groundwork.
Because we know what the council will allow
Richmond upon Thames expects a permeable surface, at least a tenth of the front garden left planted, and no water running onto the pavement. We design to that from the first sketch, so you are not told to dig something up after you have paid for it. How we build a permeable driveway.
Because we know the order things have to happen in
The council will not build your dropped kerb until the driveway behind it is finished. Do it the other way round and you have paid a non-refundable charge to sit and wait. We sequence the work so that does not happen to you. How crossovers work here.
Because we know these houses
The 1930s semis, the Victorian terraces, the frontages that are deep enough and the ones that are not. We can usually tell you whether two cars will genuinely fit before we have even visited, which saves you finding out expensively. The areas we cover.
Because block paving is all we do
Not resin, not tarmac, not landscaping with driveways on the side. One trade, done properly. And when block paving is genuinely the wrong answer for your frontage, we will tell you that too rather than sell it to you anyway.
Because we have been doing it since 1977
Long enough to have gone back to driveways we laid twenty years ago, and long enough to have been called out to plenty that other people laid five years ago. That is where the judgement comes from. More about us.
A family team, and a long memory for driveways
Our driveway and paving experience goes back to 1977. That is more than forty-five years of laying block paving, and more than forty-five years of being called back to look at other people’s.
It is a family business, a father and his two sons, and the person who quotes your driveway is on it while it is being built. We are a Which? Trusted Trader and we are fully insured.
We have more than thirty five-star reviews across Google and Trustpilot. We would rather you went and read them there than take our word for it here.
Jack, Robert and Dave just completed our driveway which was finished to an incredibly high standard and their attention to detail is 2nd to none. The project was started exactly when they said and completed slightly ahead of schedule! Having done other building works for us in the past we knew we were in safe hands.
The year our driveway and paving experience begins.
Years of laying, repairing and re-laying block paving.
Five-star reviews across Google and Trustpilot.
Questions we get asked most
How long does a block paved driveway take?
A straightforward single driveway is usually three to five working days. A wider frontage, a full boundary wall, or ground that has to come out deeper will push that towards a week or a little more.
The dig and the sub-base take the bulk of it. Laying the blocks is the fast part, which is why a drive that goes down suspiciously quickly is worth asking questions about.
Do I need planning permission for a driveway in Twickenham?
If the surface is permeable, or the rainwater runs off onto a lawn or border inside your boundary, you can usually pave a front garden without planning permission. If you lay something impermeable over more than five square metres and the water runs into the road, you need it.
Twickenham has a further wrinkle. Richmond upon Thames has more conservation areas than any other London borough, and if you are in one, on a classified road, or under an Article 4 direction, the answer changes. Our guide to planning permission for Twickenham driveways goes through it properly.
Can you match paving that is already down?
Often, yes, and we will tell you honestly when we cannot. Block ranges get discontinued, and even a current block will have weathered on your drive for years while the new ones have not.
Where an exact match is not possible, the usual answer is to make the difference look deliberate rather than accidental: a change of pattern, a border, or moving the older blocks to one area and the new ones to another. That reads as a design decision. A near-miss match never does.
What is underneath a block paved driveway?
Compacted sub-base, a screeded laying course, then the blocks, all held in by an edge restraint bedded in concrete. The sub-base is the part that carries the car, and its depth depends on the ground under it.
It is also the part you cannot inspect once the job is finished, which is why it is worth asking about before you sign anything. We set it out in full in how a block paved driveway is built.
My driveway has sunk in one spot. Does the whole thing need replacing?
Usually not. A dip in one area is normally a local problem: a service trench that was backfilled loosely, a soakaway that has silted up, or a patch where the sub-base was never properly compacted. We lift that area, put the base right and re-lay the same blocks.
If the whole drive is rutted and moving, that is a different conversation, and lifting and re-laying the lot is often still cheaper than a full replacement because the blocks themselves are usually fine.
Do you charge for a quote?
No. We come and look at the driveway, measure it, check the levels and the ground, and give you a written quote. There is no charge and no obligation, and we do not chase you afterwards.
Tell us about your driveway
Tell us about your driveway and your plans. We’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
It helps to know roughly how big the area is, what is down at the moment, and whether anything about the frontage worries you. If you are not sure yet, say so. A good part of what we do is telling people what their options actually are.
- We come out and look at it properly
- Written, itemised quote
- No obligation and no chasing afterwards