High Street back yards

A wide street with thin plots behind it

Northallerton High Street is long and wide. The plots behind it are the opposite: thin strips running back from a narrow front, the old burgage pattern. A shop or a house occupies the street end. A yard occupies the rest, sometimes with a wall, a shed and a gate that may no longer open. Wind travels the street and finds the entries. The yard can be sheltered by its walls or draughty when a passage lines up with the breeze.

Our team paves these yards as yards. One floor, a fall that stays on the plot, an edge against old brick, and a route for materials that respects the building. Bedale has the same logic on its market street. This page is about Northallerton, where the passage may be a shop. Vale clay does not stop at the town. Soft material comes out. Stone goes down in layers and is packed firm. The edges are held, because a long thin yard shows every bit of spread.

Burgage plots, entries and gates

A burgage plot is long for its width. That length is useful, because there is room for a sitting square near the door and a plainer run for bins. It is awkward, because light and levels change along the strip. The door end may be dark. The far end may step down towards a back lane. We often split the paving into those two characters.

Narrow entries are the historic way through. Some are private. Some are shared. We need to know whether a neighbour uses the same opening. A shared entry is not a store for stone overnight. If a rear gate still reaches a lane, that is the route we want. If the gate has been lost, the way in is through the building, and the quote says so plainly.

Carrying materials through the shop or the house

Through a house, we look at the hall, the kitchen door and the step at the back. Large flags are a poor choice if they cannot turn. Smaller units are the honest specification. We protect floors and we agree the hour. Through a shop, we do not block a counter, and we do not leave grit in a doorway people will use that afternoon. Materials move in a planned window. The yard can stay a building site. The shop should not.

Tell us about a low beam or a stepped threshold. Those details change a broad flag into a block. Block paving is often what survives a narrow entry. Stone belongs where the passage allows a flag. Porcelain can suit a later extension if we can get it there. Sills at the back door are often low, and many old yards have crept upwards under layers of concrete. Taking that build-up down is sometimes the real job. Mention a door that stands in water.

Clay, wind and the neighbour's wall

Water pushed against a neighbour's brick is not a detail we leave. We find the low point on your plot, a gully or a planted strip, and we fall towards it. Where the yard tips to a lane, the edge at the gate has to hold the paving. A soldier course or a kerb, properly haunched, is the usual answer. Wind down the High Street is a reason to keep the sitting area in the sheltered half, often against the building. A long thin yard can be a wind tunnel. A low screen under the 300 mm line may be the difference. Anything higher than 300 mm above the surrounding ground needs a conversation with North Yorkshire Council. A ground-level yard at the back usually does not need an application.

Some High Street buildings are listed, and the centre has conservation-area controls. The mapped boundary is on the planning data service. Altering a front or a listed structure is a question for the council. Paving inside an existing back yard, at ground level, is the ordinary case. Our guide to greens and market-town fronts sets those questions out. The clay guide is here.

A quote that starts with the passage

When you ask for a quote, begin with the way in. Shop, house, shared entry, or a back gate. Then the length of the yard and whether a gully exists. Our team will answer with a material that can make the journey and a fall that stays on the plot. Bedale is the other market town we describe in the same spirit. These yards are useful rooms and easy to get wrong: a load that will not fit, a fall onto the next plot, a sill buried under a thick slab. All of that is avoidable if the quote starts from the building you already have.

Patio questions