Kenley, CR8
Driveways, Walls and Patios in Kenleyon a Hillside Where the Retaining Comes First
Kenley climbs from the Godstone Road valley to the aerodrome plateau, so very little of it is flat. Retaining, stepped drives and cross falls are the normal job here rather than the exception.
Kenley, CR8
Eighty-Four Metres at the Station, a Hundred and Seventy-One at the Top and Houses on Most of the Ground in Between
Kenley has the sharpest rise of the Croydon towns we work in. The station sits at about 84 m and the aerodrome plateau at about 171 m, with the built area spread across the hillside between them. The flat ground is a narrow strip along Godstone Road and the plateau itself. Everything else is a slope, and a slope changes the dig, the retaining, the gradient, where the spoil goes and where the water comes out.
The second thing about Kenley is the street scene. Grass verges with tree planting, narrow lanes under a heavy canopy, and streets that often have one footway with green planting opposite. There is frequently no kerbside space to stand a lorry, and there is often something living between your boundary and the road.
We are a family-run company from Caterham, just along the A22, and we do the entire job ourselves: excavation, drainage, sub-base, edging, brickwork and laying. That matters more on a hillside than on the flat, because the retaining, the drainage and the paving all have to be designed as one thing by the people building it.
27 years in the trade, on the Marshalls Register of Accredited Landscape Contractors and Driveway Installers, a London Stone registered installer and a Bradstone assured installer. 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade, fully insured, domestic and commercial.
Under the front garden
Chalk on the Slopes, Clay and Flint on the Tops and Groundwater Running the Valley Below Both
BGS 1:50,000 mapping returns the Lewes Nodular, Seaford and Newhaven Chalk formations, undifferentiated, as bedrock at Kenley Lane, Old Lodge Lane, Welcomes Road and the aerodrome. The superficial cover splits the town in two. The high ground at the aerodrome and around Valley Road is capped by Clay with Flints, a sandy clay full of flint nodules that fills dissolution pipes and hollows in the chalk from one to fifty metres across. The slopes below have no superficial cover at all.
So the same street can give you two different jobs. On the open chalk the dig is clean and the ground drains, but chalk softens and pumps when worked wet, so we cover the formation as soon as it is opened. On the clay cap the dig is heavier, wetter and slower, it will not usually take a soakaway, and the depth can change inside one frontage where a dissolution hollow runs through. Old Lodge Lane, running north west towards Reedham and the Purley boundary, has no superficial cover mapped along it, so that side of Kenley is the cleaner dig of the two.
Water is a live issue down in the valley. Croydon's flood strategy names the A22 Godstone Road among the routes particularly susceptible to surface water flooding, says the chalk geology increases groundwater flooding vulnerability through the valley routes at Kenley, Purley and Coulsdon, and describes a funded flood alleviation scheme for the Welcomes Road and Kenley Lane area. On a hillside that matters twice over, because water that leaves your drive has to go somewhere and the somewhere is usually downhill through somebody else's frontage.
- Cross falls set so water leaves a sloping drive sideways instead of running its full length
- Chalk formation blinded and covered the day it is opened
- No soakaway promised on the Valley Road clay cap until we have dug and looked
- Drainage designed first on the Welcomes Road and Kenley Lane ground, surface chosen after
The houses
Large Plots on a Wooded Hillside, Tight Victorian Frontages in the Valley and a Verge to Cross on Plenty of Them
The Local Plan treats Kenley with Old Coulsdon as wooded hillside residential settlements, predominantly detached houses on relatively large plots and planned estates of semi-detached houses, with consistent building lines and setbacks that produce large green front gardens. The council's character typology work uses Kenley as a named example of scattered houses on large plots, a Green Belt fringe type at roughly three to eight units per hectare with an average house footprint around 154 square metres. That means long private drives and room to turn a car.
The older, tighter housing is concentrated on Godstone Road between the station and the shops, where modest housing and shops were built in the 1880s, while the western hillside carries larger Victorian houses on higher ground. One street can be a narrow Victorian frontage on the valley floor and the next a large plot on a steep slope. Riddlesdown sits above the shops to the north and the railway runs to the south, so the green space frames the residential streets on both sides and there is less through road than the map suggests.
Kenley's public realm changes how a drive meets the road as well. The Local Plan describes grass verges with tree planting, narrow lanes with heavy tree canopy, and streets with one footway and green planting opposite. Where there is a verge between your boundary and the carriageway, that ground is usually highway rather than part of your garden, so crossing it belongs in the crossover application to Croydon.
- Long private drives set out with a turning area so nobody reverses onto a hill
- Verge crossings agreed with Croydon before the drive levels are fixed
- Tree roots and canopy worked around, not cut through, on the wooded lanes
- Narrow Godstone Road frontages built with the parade and the footway kept clear
What we do most in Kenley
Retaining Walls, Stepped Drives and Brickwork Because the Hill Decides the Job Before You Do
More of our Kenley work involves brickwork than anywhere else we go. Retaining walls to hold a bank back off a drive, low walls and piers to define a frontage on a slope, steps between levels, and the drainage that sits behind all of it. A retaining wall is a drainage structure as much as a brick one: if the water behind it cannot get out, the wall fails.
Drives here get stepped and terraced rather than ramped. We break a steep run into landings, set cross falls that shed water sideways instead of letting it sheet down the whole length, and put a drainage line at the bottom so the road is not the collection point.
In the back gardens it is terraces cut into the hill, garden rooms on a level base, steps and fencing on ground that will not stay put on its own.
- Retaining walls built with drainage behind them, not just brick in front of a bank
- Brick piers and gates set plumb on ground that slopes both ways at once
- Stepped block paved drives with landings instead of one long ramp
- Terraces cut into the hillside with the cut side retained properly
- Fencing, steps and beds on banks that need holding before anything is planted
Levels, access and permission
Croydon Is the Council, but the Aerodrome Is a Special Case and an Article 4 Direction Sits Over the Open Land There
The planning authority is the London Borough of Croydon, with Metropolitan Green Belt across the Kenley and Old Coulsdon Place. Kenley Aerodrome Conservation Area was designated in March 2006, described by the council as the most complete Battle of Britain fighter airfield to survive, and it contains scheduled monuments. Because the airfield straddles the boundary, its planning guidance was produced jointly with Tandridge District Council.
An Article 4 direction confirmed by the Secretary of State on 13 July 2007 removes permitted development rights for the erection, construction, maintenance, improvement or alteration of a gate, fence, wall or other means of enclosure on the open land within that conservation area. That is an enclosure control rather than a surfacing control, but it means boundary work there needs a planning application. It matters generally too, because permitted development for hard surfacing does not apply where an Article 4 direction is in force.
Dropped kerb applications go to Croydon Council online, and the council states that planning permission is also required where a crossover is formed within a classified road or a conservation area, which in Kenley covers the A22 Godstone Road, a Transport for London red route. On surfacing generally, the Planning Portal guidance is that a driveway of any size is permitted development if it uses a permeable or porous surface, or if rainwater is directed to a lawn or border to drain naturally. Worth knowing as well: Whyteleafe carries on down the same valley immediately south of Kenley but sits in Tandridge District in Surrey, a different planning and highways authority.
- Access checked for a grab lorry before quoting, because many of these lanes will not take one
- Spoil taken off site downhill in smaller loads where a full lorry cannot turn
- Boundary walls, gates and fences near the aerodrome treated as a planning application, not permitted development
- Godstone Road crossovers priced with the classified road requirement built in
Villages and neighbourhoods
Where We Work Around Kenley
We cover Kenley from the Godstone Road valley up to the aerodrome plateau, and we carry on over the boundary into Surrey. Note which of these are Croydon and which are not, because it changes who you apply to.
Our work
Work of This Kind
Questions
Kenley Questions We Get Asked
Do I need permission for a wall or gate near Kenley Aerodrome?
Very likely. An Article 4 direction confirmed by the Secretary of State on 13 July 2007 removes permitted development rights for the erection, construction, maintenance, improvement or alteration of a gate, fence, wall or other means of enclosure on the open land within Kenley Aerodrome Conservation Area. Boundary work there needs a planning application to Croydon, so it is worth checking early.
What is under my garden on Valley Road?
Clay with Flints over chalk. It is an orange brown sandy clay packed with flint nodules that sits in dissolution pipes and hollows in the chalk, anywhere from one metre to fifty metres across. It digs heavier and wetter than the open chalk on the slopes below, it will not usually take a soakaway, and the depth to good ground can change inside a single frontage.
Why does water collect around Welcomes Road and Kenley Lane?
It is a long standing local problem rather than anything you have done. Croydon's flood strategy describes a funded flood alleviation scheme for long standing localised surface water flooding in the Welcomes Road and Kenley Lane area, and says the chalk geology increases groundwater flooding vulnerability through the valley routes at Kenley, Purley and Coulsdon.
My drive is too steep to use in ice. Can that be fixed?
Usually. The answers are gradient, grip and drainage. We break a long steep run into landings and steps rather than one continuous ramp, set cross falls so water sheds sideways instead of running the full length and freezing at the bottom, and put a drainage line at the low point. Block paving holds grip well on gradient.
Does a grass verge in front of my house belong to me?
Generally the verge between your boundary and the carriageway is highway land rather than part of your garden, and the Local Plan describes exactly that arrangement across Kenley: grass verges with tree planting and streets with one footway. Crossing it forms part of the vehicle crossover application to Croydon Council, so it needs agreeing before drive levels are set.
Can you get a lorry and a machine up my lane?
Often, but not always, and we check it before we quote rather than on the first morning. Much of Kenley is narrow lanes under heavy tree canopy with one footway and planting opposite, so there may be no kerbside space to stand a grab lorry. Where there is not, spoil goes out downhill in smaller loads and materials come in the same way.
Do you build retaining walls as well as the drive?
Yes, and on this hillside the two usually arrive together. We build the retaining, the drainage behind it, the steps, the piers and the paving as one job under one programme. A retaining wall holds back water as well as soil, so the drainage behind it is not an extra. Managing it as one project means the wall and the drive levels are designed against each other.
Get a quote
Planning an Outdoor Project in Kenley?
Photos of the slope and the access, plus rough measurements, are enough for us to tell you what is involved. Free written quote with the retaining, the drainage and the paving all specified.
- Free, no-obligation quotationsIn writing, with the build-up and the drainage set out.
- 27 years in the tradeMarshalls Register accredited, Bradstone Assured.
- Fully insuredDomestic and commercial work across Surrey.
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Where we work
Paving, Landscaping & Outdoor Construction Across Surrey
Based in Caterham, we undertake projects throughout Surrey and selected areas of Kent and West Sussex. For larger or more comprehensive projects, we are happy to consider work further afield.