Somerset, BS27
Landscaping and property maintenance in Cheddar
Under the gorge, three and a half miles south east, and the steepest ground on the list.
About 4 miles from Winscombe
The ground in Cheddar
Cheddar is limestone country and it does not pretend otherwise. Gardens on the gorge side of the village are steep, shallow soiled and full of rock, which rules out some machinery and rules in stone. Ground that will not hold a lawn will hold a terrace, and a dry stone or sleeper retaining wall is often the only way to get a usable flat area out of a slope like that.
Limestone drains fast and then, in a downpour, it does not drain at all, it runs. Where the water goes once it leaves your ground is a real question on a Cheddar hillside and it is worth answering before the wall goes in rather than after.
Away from the slope the village flattens toward the moor and the strawberry ground, where the work looks completely different. Same village, two sets of problems.
Cheddar is in Somerset, not North Somerset.
What Tom is most often asked for in Cheddar
All seven services are available across the whole coverage area. These are ordered by what the ground and the buildings in Cheddar tend to need.
- Retaining wallsRailway sleeper and dry stone retaining walls that hold a slope properly, with steps built into them.
- LandscapingWhole gardens designed and built, from clearance and levelling through to planting, turfing and clipped hedging.
- ForestryOvergrown ground brought back. Scrub clearance, chipping, and orchards and woodland edges opened up again.
- PatiosIndian sandstone, slate and reclaimed stone laid on a proper base, with the falls set so water leaves the house.
Recent work
The kind of thing this looks like
Photographs of Tom's own work. Not necessarily taken in Cheddar, they are jobs from across North Somerset and the Mendip villages, chosen here because they show the work this page is about.
Terraced stonework and gravel steps 
Steps built to reach a new patio 
Stream bank cleared, topiary clipped
Nearby
Tom covers these too, and the villages in between them.