Woldingham, CR3
Driveways and Paving in WoldinghamChalk Under the Topsoil, Private Roads and Long Sloping Approaches
Woldingham runs along a ridge, with the historic core at around 230 metres and large detached houses set well back in planted plots. Most of the roads are privately maintained, most drives slope, and the village design guidance has firm views on surfacing. All three change how a job is priced.
Up on the ridge
A Village of Long, Sloping Approaches and Roads That Belong to the Residents
Woldingham is unlike anywhere else we work. Large individually designed houses on large plots along a ridge, with drives that climb or fall away from the road and buildings set so far back behind planting that you often cannot see them from the gate. The approach drive is a serious piece of construction here.
Crockett & Crockett Paving is family run by Oli Crockett, with 27 years behind it and our own team on the tools. The core work is delivered and managed by us, from breaking ground to the last cut block. On a long private approach that matters, because there is nowhere to hide a badly built section.
We cover the village and The Green, Woldingham Garden Village, Slines Oak, Long Hill, Station Road, Northdown Road, Park View Road, High Drive and the lanes down towards Marden Park. Approach drives are the bulk of it, in block paving, resin-bound, concrete or shingle, and alongside them patios and porcelain, garden rooms, retaining walls, gate piers, brickwork, decking, fencing and drainage.
Our accreditations are the Marshalls Register of Accredited Landscape Contractors and Driveway Installers, London Stone registered installer and Bradstone assured installer, and we hold 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Fully insured, quotes free and in writing, and clear responsibility on site from the first dig to the last joint brushed in.
What is under the front garden
Chalk Straight Under the Topsoil With One Clay Exception Worth Pricing
British Geological Survey mapping along Slines Oak Road and at Long Hill returns chalk with no superficial deposit mapped at all, and the same absence of cover shows in the valley by the station, so on those plots the chalk is straight under the topsoil. The Victoria County History describes the parish as standing on the top of the Chalk Downs at 700 feet and in places 800 feet, with the soil recorded as coarse gravel on the chalk. National soil mapping cited for the village gives free draining, slightly acid loamy soil alongside free draining, lime rich loamy soil.
For a driveway that is mostly good news. Excavation is usually quick, the formation drains, a soakaway is normally viable, and the sub-base is not fighting a plastic clay that swells and shrinks with the seasons. The catch is that chalk is soft when wet. It pumps and ruts under plant, so it wants dry weather working and a formation protected as soon as it is opened.
One exception is worth pricing for. Along Station Road the mapping does show a Clay-with-flints Formation cap recorded as clay, which is a different build up altogether. Surface water is still live on the slopes as well: the Strategic Flood Risk Assessment records flooding in Woldingham in February and March 2014, and emergency storage areas built in the fields adjacent to Woldingham Road, later formalised as attenuation features.
- Chalk formation opened, protected and covered the same day, because it will not take plant wet.
- Soakaways generally viable, which suits the porous surfacing the village guidance asks for.
- Station Road plots priced on clay, not chalk, until the dig proves otherwise.
- Long approaches drained across their length, not just at the bottom.
The houses
Detached, Individual, Set Back and Never at the Same Level as the Road
Woldingham is overwhelmingly a village of large detached houses on large plots. The 2011 Census recorded 524 detached homes in the civil parish against 90 semi-detached, 42 terraced and 81 flats, and the adopted design guidance treats terraced houses as atypical and something that should remain the exception.
The modern village was laid out from 1884, when the railway arrived, on land from the two medieval manors of Upper Court and Nether Court. The Woldingham Character Assessment traces the phases: first plots at The Wold and Deepdale and west of The Green by 1896, more on Northdown Road and Park View Road by 1914, then by 1933 large plots substantially developed along Park View Road, Long Hill, High Drive, Station Road, Northdown Road and Upper Court Road, with smaller plots on Southfields Road and southern Slines Oak Road. Most houses are individually designed and detached, the majority from the 1920s and 1930s, generally two storey, in red brick, light or white render or tile hung, set at varying angles within heavily planted plots so the buildings are lost in the greenery.
That has direct consequences for hard landscaping. Most roads are privately maintained, with no pavements, no kerbs and no highway markings, and some are uneven and only partly surfaced. Driveways are commonly gravel and often open without gates. Because buildings are typically not at the same level as the road, the entrance drive usually slopes up or down to the house, so it is a levels exercise before it is a surfacing one.
- Long entrance drives that climb or fall, with gradient, drainage and edge restraint as one design.
- Gravel and bound gravel approaches, retained at the edges so the stone stays where it was laid.
- Gate piers, flint and brick walls and rendering that suit a 1930s house.
- Turning areas set into the slope so cars sit level near the house, not on the pitch.
What we do most here
The Approach Drive, Done Properly and Gardens That Keep Their Greenery
The signature Woldingham job is a full approach drive: a long run from a private road up or down to a house sitting at a different level, with a turning area near the door. That means a gradient that is comfortable in a frost, edge restraint that holds a loose or bound surface on a slope, and water taken off the drive at intervals rather than all of it arriving at the bottom.
The second is garden work on big, planted plots. Porcelain and stone terraces cut level into a sloping lawn. Steps between levels. Artificial grass where a shaded plot under mature planting will never hold a lawn. Decking, fencing and flint and brick detailing. Most of the work here is slotting hard landscaping into the greenery without losing the greenery, because that setting is what the design guidance is protecting.
- Long approach drives in resin-bound, block paving, shingle or concrete, with winter gradients.
- Retaining walls, steps and terraces cut into the ridge slopes at Long Hill and Slines Oak.
- Garden rooms with the slab, the drainage and the apron built first, then the path run back to the drive.
- Gate piers, garden walls, flint and brick detailing and rendering.
- Drainage along the length of a sloping drive, with a soakaway where the chalk allows.
Levels, access and permission
Private Roads Change the Rules So We Establish Ownership Before Quoting
The village straddles a long ridgeline running north from the escarpment. Buildings sit between 150m and 248m AOD, the lowest point in the parish is 106m AOD at the Croydon Road roundabout at the foot of Woldingham Road, and the highest is 261m AOD along The Ridge. The Character Assessment puts the historic core at 230m to 235m AOD, with short, narrow, steep sided valleys cutting into the ridge at Long Hill and Slines Oak Road. On Long Hill the houses to the west sit below road level while those to the east sit on a steep incline well above it.
Tandridge District Council is the planning authority and Surrey County Council is the highways authority for a vehicle crossover, but Woldingham is the one village where that is not the whole answer. The Character Assessment records that the majority of roads in the village are privately maintained, so a new access can be a matter for the road's owners as well as, or instead of, the county licence, and it is worth establishing ownership before we quote.
The Woldingham Neighbourhood Plan was made in April 2016. Its design policy asks that, where planning permission is required for a new drive entrance, the entrance is offset to avoid a formal layout and is aligned neither with the centre of the frontage of the dwelling nor with any drive opposite. The same policy says roads without pavements should be retained as such and road treatments should not be formalised. The adopted Woldingham Design Guidance goes further on surfacing: hard standing in front gardens should be limited to access drives, should not dominate the green setting, and should use textured materials such as porous paving or gravel.
- Woldingham Green is the conservation area, and Marden Park lies in the Surrey Hills National Landscape and the Woldingham and Oxted Downs SSSI.
- Porous paving and gravel suit both the design guidance and the Planning Portal rules on permeable surfacing.
- Approach roads are steep and often run in cuttings, so deliveries get planned and loads get split.
- Village character also rests on the Gilford covenants and the minimum plot sizes.
Villages and neighbourhoods
Where We Work in and Around Woldingham
The parish runs from the station in the valley up to the ridge and out to Marden Park. These are the parts of Woldingham we cover, with their postcode districts.
Our work
Woldingham Work of This Kind
Questions
Woldingham Questions We Get Asked
My road is privately maintained. Do I still need a crossover licence?
Possibly not from the county, but you may need the road owners' agreement instead. The Woldingham Character Assessment records that most roads in the village are privately maintained, with no pavements and no kerbs, so a new access can be a matter for the road's owners as well as, or instead of, Surrey County Council. We establish ownership before we quote.
What does the Woldingham Design Guidance say about driveway surfaces?
The adopted guidance asks that hard standing in front gardens is limited to access drives, does not dominate the green setting, and is surfaced with textured materials such as porous paving or gravel, with soft landscape dominant in the front garden. In practice that points towards gravel, bound gravel and permeable paving rather than large uniform paved areas.
Is there a rule about where my new drive entrance goes?
The Woldingham Neighbourhood Plan, made in April 2016, includes a design policy asking that where planning permission is required for a new drive entrance, the entrance is offset to avoid a formal layout, and is aligned neither with the centre of the frontage of the dwelling nor with any drive on the opposite side of the road.
Will a soakaway work up here?
Usually yes, which is not something we can say everywhere in Tandridge. Mapping along Slines Oak Road, at Long Hill and by the station shows chalk with no superficial deposit, and the soils are recorded as free draining, so infiltration is normally viable. Station Road is the exception, where a Clay-with-flints cap is mapped and the build up has to change.
Our drive climbs steeply from the road. What can be done about ice?
Gradient first, then surface, then drainage. We set the gradient as gently as the ground allows, sometimes by lengthening the run or reshaping the turning area, and choose a surface with grip rather than polish. Then we take water off the drive at intervals so nothing sheets down and freezes at the bottom. On Long Hill and Slines Oak that is most of the design work.
Can you get machinery and lorries up here?
Yes, with planning. Approach roads into the village are steep and often run in cuttings, and many village roads are private, narrow and without kerbs, so we check access before quoting and split deliveries into smaller loads where a full grab lorry cannot turn. Any road we run over gets left as we found it.
Do you work in Woldingham Garden Village and Marden Park?
Yes. Woldingham Garden Village is a separate settlement to the north west, on a former army camp, and Marden Park is the valley estate to the south west, now Woldingham School, within the Surrey Hills National Landscape and the Woldingham and Oxted Downs SSSI. Those designations mean anything beyond a driveway is worth checking with Tandridge first.
Get a quote
Planning an Outdoor Project in Woldingham?
Woldingham jobs are quoted after we have seen the gradient, the road ownership and where the water goes. Call 01883 340429 or email info@crockettpaving.co.uk and we will arrange a time.
- 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.
Arrange a free site visit
Tell us a little about the project and we will come out, look at the ground and put a written quotation together.
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.