Garden wall builders in London,
starting with the footing.
Anyone can lay bricks in a straight line. Whether the wall is still straight in ten years is decided by the footing, the movement joints and the coping, and those are the three things most quotes quietly leave out.
The footing decides
everything after it.
A free standing wall has no roof holding it down and no floors tying it in. It carries its own weight and it takes the wind, and all of that goes into the ground through the footing. Get that wrong and nothing above it can save the wall.
Much of London sits on clay, which shrinks when it dries and swells when it wets, season after season. A footing that sits too shallow rides that movement, and the wall above it cracks in a stepped line through the joints. Tree roots draw moisture out of the clay for a long way around them, so a wall near a mature tree usually needs to go deeper than the same wall in an open garden.
So the first question on a new wall is not what brick you want. It is what the ground is, how tall the wall will be, and what is growing near it.
Height is a planning question,
not a taste one.
Under permitted development in England you generally need planning permission for a wall over 1 metre high where it adjoins a highway used by vehicles, or a footpath beside one, and over 2 metres high anywhere else. A front wall is held to a tighter limit than the same wall down the side of the garden.
Listed buildings and conservation areas are tighter again, and a wall that forms part of a listed structure can need consent regardless of height. London has a great deal of both, so it is worth checking before the order goes in.
Height also changes the engineering. As a wall goes up, wind loading rises sharply, and at some point a single skin of brick stops being enough on its own and the wall needs piers at intervals, a thicker section, or both. That is a design decision to make before the footing is dug.
Joints, a coping
and a damp course.
None of this is exotic. It is standard practice, and it is the first thing to disappear when a price is being cut to win a job.
Movement joints
Brickwork expands and contracts. A long unbroken run with nowhere to go will crack where it wants to. Joints at sensible intervals cost very little at build stage and are the difference between a wall that ages and a wall that splits.
Coping or capping
Water that soaks into the open top of a wall freezes in winter and takes the face off the bricks from the top down. A coping with a proper drip throws it clear.
Damp proof course
A damp course near the base stops ground moisture rising up the wall and doing the same damage from the bottom. It is invisible once built and easy to skip, which is why one wall is sound at twenty years while its neighbour crumbles at eight.
Matched to the house,
not to the merchant.
A new wall next to an old house is an exercise in matching. Brick type, size, colour and bond all have to sit with what is already there, and on a period property the mortar matters as much as the brick. A crisp grey cement joint against soft Victorian stock reads as new from across the street and behaves badly against the brick as well.
Where new work ties into existing brickwork, the junction is the giveaway. Toothing in properly so the new coursing runs with the old is what makes a wall look like it has always been there. Send a photo of the existing wall and we will tell you what it is and what will match it.
Brickwork is led by a bricklayer with more than 30 years' experience, used to running both small crews and large teams.
Front walls, boundary walls
and retaining walls.
Low front garden walls with piers and gate openings, and taller boundary walls between gardens.
Our recent boundary wall rebuild on Westcombe Park Road in SE3 is on the brick wall rebuild page, with photographs from before, during and after.
Retaining walls
Where a garden steps down a slope the wall holds back soil and water. That is a different structure: it needs drainage behind it and is designed for the load rather than simply built higher.
How a new wall is built,
in simple steps.
1. Site visit
We check the ground, the height you want, nearby trees, the boundary position and any planning limits.
2. Written quote
A fixed written price with the footing, brick, coping and joints specified, so you can compare like with like.
3. Footing and build
The footing is dug and poured, then the wall goes up course by course with the damp course and joints in place.
4. Coping and finish
The coping goes on, joints are finished to match, and spoil and offcuts are cleared away.
Questions we get
asked most.
Get a written
price.
Monday to Saturday 9am to 8pm, Sunday 9am to 3pm. All London boroughs.
Message us on WhatsAppSend the paragraph from your report or a photo and we will price the work it describes.
Often needed
alongside this.
Areas we cover.
We take new brickwork and garden walls across all 32 London boroughs. Most of our work is in west London, in Shepherd's Bush, Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington, Chiswick and White City, and in south west London, in Putney, Wandsworth and Wimbledon. We also work in south east London, in Greenwich, Blackheath and Lewisham.
If your property is outside these areas, call us anyway. We travel across London and will tell you honestly if a job is too far to price properly.