New Patios for Saltburn-by-the-Sea Homes

Victorian streets and long gardens

The name Saltburn comes from the Old English "saltburna", a salt stream, and the first settlement was Old Saltburn, down in Saltburn Gill. In the 18th century it was a smugglers' hamlet; by 1856 it was little more than the Ship Inn and a row of cottages. Everything changed when ironstone was found in the Cleveland Hills and the railway came. The Pease family and fellow investors laid out a new town on the cliff top, and most of it was built in the second half of the 19th century.

That planned Victorian town is still the heart of Saltburn. The Saltburn ward's housing in the 2021 Census is mixed: 31.6% semi-detached, 22.8% terraced, 16.5% detached and 13.4% flats, many of those in converted villas and seafront buildings. The jewel streets, named Emerald, Ruby, Garnet, Diamond and so on, are long parallel rows of brick terraces with back lanes.

A jewel-street garden is typically narrow and quite long, often with a brick outhouse and a gate to the back lane. The bigger villas have proper walled gardens, sometimes with old stone or brick paths worth keeping. Newer houses further inland have ordinary suburban plots. On the terraces, the usual request is a patio by the house that makes the most of a narrow space, sometimes with a path running to the back gate.

The ground on the cliff top

The British Geological Survey maps Saltburn on glacial till over Redcar Mudstone. The till is a stiff clay with stones. It is firm when dry but holds water, and on clay, an old patio laid on sand alone tends to sink and rock.

We dig to firm ground, put down a geotextile and build a compacted crushed-stone sub-base, then bed the stone and set a fall away from the house. On narrow terraced plots the fall usually goes down the garden to a gully or the back lane drainage, rather than toward a neighbour. Where an old path or edging is worth keeping, we work around it and match levels.

Exposure matters on the cliff top. Wind-driven rain and salt in the air are harder on soft stone and cheap pointing than in a sheltered inland garden. Denser sandstone, porcelain or good concrete slabs, with a durable jointing compound, last better. The Environment Agency shows Flood Zone 3 within 750 metres of the town centre, which follows the valley of Skelton Beck and the gill rather than the residential streets on the plateau.

Conservation area and listed buildings

Saltburn-by-the-Sea has a large conservation area and 35 listed buildings and structures, including the Albert Memorial, the inclined tramway buildings, the Queen Hotel, Britannia Mansions, Balmoral Terrace, 3 Diamond Street and even a row of beach huts.

A ground-level patio at the back of a house is normally still permitted development inside a conservation area. Front gardens and boundaries are where the extra care comes in: new non-permeable paving over five square metres at the front needs permission, and demolishing front walls or railings in a conservation area can need consent. If your home is listed, check with the council before changing anything that might affect it. We flag anything we think needs checking at the visit.

Cost drivers in Saltburn

A quote follows a visit. In Saltburn, the main factors are:

• Access. Back lanes help; otherwise materials come through the house.
• Shape. Long, narrow gardens need careful cutting and drainage.
• Clay. Soft spots dug out and replaced with stone.
• Existing features. Old paths, edging or walls to keep or repair.
• Material. Sandstone, porcelain and slabs differ in price.
• Clearance. Removing old slabs, concrete and outhouse bases.

Places next to Saltburn-by-the-Sea

• Marske-by-the-Sea patio page: West along the coast: a village High Street and semi-detached estates.
• Brotton patio page: South-east, inland: a hilltop village with its own conservation area.
• Skelton patio page: South: a historic market town at the foot of the Cleveland Hills.

Pages that suit Saltburn's older homes: indian sandstone patios, garden walls, garden paths and steps.

All places we cover: areas page.

Asked about patios in Saltburn-by-the-Sea

Sources: ONS Census 2021 TS044, Saltburn ward (Nomis); Wikipedia: Saltburn-by-the-Sea; Planning Data: conservation areas; Planning Data: listed buildings; BGS Geology Viewer; Environment Agency Flood Map for Planning.