Steps on Harrogate slopes

Reading the fall before drawing a line

The slope of a Harrogate garden is rarely one even gradient from the back door to a tidy boundary. We measure from the door to the far fence and across the width, because a plot can fall away from the house and also tilt towards a neighbour, a lane or a beck. A hill plot, of the kind common on Harlow Hill where Otley Road climbs west out of town, may need two or three levels, each flat enough for a table and each connected by a flight that feels deliberate. Keeping each paved surface near the soil it replaces also matters once the height above the lower ground approaches about 300 millimetres, the point at which North Yorkshire Council normally expects a planning application. The terrace walls page describes the low edges that hold those floors apart.

Risers that feel like a garden

A garden step is walked differently from a stair inside a house, so the rise wants to be shallower and the tread deeper. We aim for a rise somewhere around 150 millimetres, and a tread deep enough for a whole foot, commonly 300 millimetres or more. Every riser in a flight is the same height, because a single tall step hidden in the middle is how people trip in the low light of a Yorkshire evening. We divide the total fall into equal parts before the first tread is cut. Stone treads in the same sandstone as a natural stone terrace suit a villa; a porcelain terrace can take a stone step or a porcelain tread of the same width where the house is later.

Landings, turns and the length of a flight

A landing is a level pause, at least as deep as the flight is wide, and it is where the descent can change direction without a kite-shaped winder. On a garden that falls both away from the house and across its width, the landing is also where we turn towards the kinder route, perhaps beside a border. Several steps, then a pause, then several more, means someone who wants to stop can do so on the flat. The landing is paved with the same care as the terrace, on a firm layer, with mortar under the whole of each slab, and its fall does not send water back onto the upper tread. If the garden drops in two directions, say so on the quote form.

Retaining edges beside the flight

Every time a terrace sits above the ground beside it, something has to hold the soil. A low change can be a sett edging or a single course of walling stone. A taller change becomes a low wall, with a footing in firm ground and a way for water to leave from behind it. Weep holes, a free-draining fill and a pipe to a sensible outlet are the usual combination, described on the terrace retaining page. We keep these edges as low as the levels allow, so each rise stays near the ground and under about 300 millimetres, the height at which the council normally expects an application. On lane-side slopes, Beckwithshaw among them, the edge is what people see from the road, so it takes the same stone as the rest.

Water, doors and the order of the work

The ground is taken down to firm material, a crushed-stone layer is firmed in thin lifts, and each tread is bedded solidly so a hollow cannot collect water and open a joint in a frost. The terrace at the top falls away from the house, and the bottom of the flight meets a path or a lawn that can take the last of the runoff. Air bricks remain clear, and the highest paving sits low enough for the house wall to dry. Block paving is often the better material for a path winding down the side of a lawn, because setts can curve and then arrive at a terrace of larger flags. Across the places on our areas page the method stays the same, and the slope decides the number of levels.

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