Garden Walling

Exactly as it says on the tin! Walling stone is a perfect product for building a natural stone wall in any outdoor space.

A natural stone garden wall costs from around £75 to £100 per square metre of wall face for the stone alone, with labour typically doubling that once a footing, mortar and copings are added. On top of that, allow for a concrete footing, around £11 to £22 per 60cm coping stone, and the mortar. A rendered concrete block wall is cheaper in materials but needs rendering, which closes most of the gap. 

Yes, every garden wall needs a concrete footing, however low it is. Without one, the wall can crack as the ground moves with the seasons. For a wall up to about 1m high, dig a trench at least 300mm deep, or down to firm ground, and pour a concrete strip around 150mm thick and twice as wide as the wall, so a 100mm stone wall would sit on a footing about 300mm wide. A Gen 1 or ST2 ready mix concrete is the right mix. Taller walls, retaining walls and walls on clay or soft ground need a deeper and wider footing, and anything over 1.2m holding back soil should be designed by an engineer.

The cheapest wall is dense concrete blocks laid on a concrete footing and left bare or rendered. At around £2.50 per block including VAT, ten blocks build a square metre of wall face for about £25 in materials, against £75 to £100 for natural stone. Blocks are also quick to lay, so labour is lower. The trade-off is looks: a block wall needs render, paint or cladding to be presentable, and once you add render the saving over stone narrows. For a low raised bed or boundary, timber sleepers are cheaper again and need no footing. 

The best option depends on whether you want the wall to look natural, modern or to match the house. For a natural look, walling stone in Raj Green sandstone or Black Limestone builds a wall with real variation in colour and texture that a brick cannot copy. For a contemporary garden, a concrete block wall faced with split-face porcelain cladding gives a sharp, slate-like finish at a lower cost than solid stone. 

Usually not. A garden wall does not need planning permission if it is no more than 2m high, or 1m high where it runs beside a road or public footpath. The limits are measured from the ground on the lower side. You will need permission for anything taller, for walls at listed buildings, and in some conservation areas where the council has removed these rights, so check with your local planning office if any of those apply. 

No, natural stone walling is a little dearer than ordinary facing brick on materials, but the gap is smaller than most people expect. Stone works out at roughly £75 to £100 per square metre of wall face, while 60 standard facing bricks for the same area cost around £50 to £70. Stone is quicker to lay because the pieces are larger and go on a single 100mm bed, which brings the labour closer to level, and it needs no pointing style to be chosen or matched. Premium handmade bricks cost more than our walling stone. The honest summary is that stone costs more than budget brick, less than good brick, and gives a wall that cannot be mistaken for anything else. 

Yes, for raised beds and low retaining walls up to about 600mm. The stone is laid in mortar on a concrete footing exactly like a free-standing wall, with a waterproof membrane behind it and drainage holes or a gravel backfill so water does not build up and push the wall over. For anything taller, build the structural wall in 7N hollow concrete blocks filled with concrete and reinforcement, then face it with walling stone or porcelain cladding so the strength comes from the block and the look from the stone. A retaining wall over 1m should be designed by an engineer. 

Walling stone builds the wall, cladding dresses a wall that already exists, and coping stones finish the top of either. Use walling stone when you are building from scratch and want solid natural stone all the way through. Use porcelain wall cladding, which comes as 40x16cm interlocking strips about 10mm thick, to transform a block, brick or rendered wall without rebuilding it. Put a coping stone on every wall: we stock them in black limestone, 50mm porcelain. A typical modern build is a block core, cladding on the face and a coping on top.