Case study · 2024 · Full rebuild
The Walled Garden
Burford, Oxfordshire
- Brief
- Full garden rebuild
- Size
- 0.4 ha walled plot
- Quoted & built for
- £18,400
- On site
- 5 weeks · Apr–May 2024
- Foreman
- Joe Hartley
An inherited garden that needed a full reset — in five weeks, while two children were at school.
The clients took the website estimator on a Sunday afternoon: a full back-garden rebuild, roughly 0.4 ha, OX18. The figure that came back was £14,500–£22,000. We were on site for the free survey nine days later.
The walls — golden Cotswold limestone, just under three metres tall — were sound. The bones were intact. But the 1970s crazy-paving patio was lifting, the old fence between this garden and the neighbour’s had rotted at the posts, and the central lawn had become an awkward in-between of sandpit and croquet pitch. The clients wanted a new patio, new fencing, a proper lawn for the children and a productive area they could grow vegetables in.
The fixed written quote came back at £18,400. Signed on the Friday, on site the following Monday.
Itemised, as quoted.
We publish costs on every case study. No surprises after the fact: every line below appeared on the original quote and the final invoice.
- 32m² Yorkstone patio, full mortar bed£7,400
- Four 2.4m raised beds, oak£1,950
- 60m Iroko slatted fencing + gates£4,300
- 80m² Rolawn Medallion + topsoil & prep£2,150
- 32m² mixed perennial border, planted£2,600
- Total — fixed at quote£18,400
“The walls hold heat into October. We can plant things here that would never survive a hundred yards downhill.”
The new Yorkstone path, replacing 1970s crazy paving.
West border, August. Achillea, sanguisorba, stipa, geranium.
Anya’s first maintenance visit, May 2024.
The 1920s wall, repointed in lime by Stow Stoneworks.
October. Eighty square metres of new Rolawn Medallion, settled in.
Five weeks, on time.
Joe and a three-lad team were on site for the build. The old patio was lifted in week one and the spoil taken away in a single skip; the sub-base went in over the long weekend so we could lay Yorkstone in week two without interrupting the school run. The fence went up in week three, the lawn the same week, and the raised beds and planting in weeks four and five. The clients were able to use the kitchen throughout; we ran the dumper down the side return and the lawn was off-limits to the children for just four weeks.
The planting palette is loose and naturalistic — warm coppers, soft pinks, near-blacks, with grasses to lift and dissolve the edges. The plants came from Hardy’s Cottage Garden in Hampshire and Knoll in Dorset; nothing was bought already in flower.
Summer-into-autumn, grass-led.
The structural perennials are listed below — we used thirty species in all. The spring layer of bulbs (narcissus, fritillary, tulip) goes in this November as part of the included eight-week visit.
- 01Achillea‘Terracotta’
- 02Sanguisorba officinalis‘Tanna’
- 03Stipa gigantea
- 04Verbena bonariensis
- 05Selinum wallichianum
- 06Phlomis russeliana
- 07Geranium‘Rozanne’
- 08Hesperantha coccinea‘Major’
- 09Molinia caerulea‘Transparent’
- 10Persicaria amplexicaulis‘Firetail’
- 11Aster × frikartii‘Mönch’
- 12Calamagrostis‘Karl Foerster’
“We had three quotes. Hartley’s came in at £18,400, on time, fully itemised, and that’s what we paid.”
On the monthly round with Anya.
The free eight-week visit confirmed the planting had taken; the lawn was usable and the patio joints had settled cleanly. The clients are now on a fortnightly maintenance round with Anya at £220 a visit — mow, edge, weed, dead-head, hedge in June and September, plant the bulbs in November. The kitchen beds gave more courgettes than the family could eat. The garden, in other words, is doing what it’s supposed to.