Natural Stone Setts - Online Shop
As previously mentioned on this website, natural stone setts and cobbles are predominantly granite and other hard types of stone, which therefore includes setts produced from slate, basalt, gneiss, quartzite and limestone. Historically these have been used all around the UK for public and commercial areas of hard landscaping in one form or another now, as the wearing course for surfacing our town centres and market squares, as well as the roads and pavements in and around them, since before Roman times.
Historically these have been used 'as found' with water rounded cobble stones, generally with a variable thickness of 200mm to 300mm, or even more, according to local availability and use. The quarried, cut and dressed (hand finished or machine tumbled to take off sharp edges and projections etc.), natural stone setts were and are generally more uniform, cut to around 200mm thick for roads and town squares, with others to around 100mm thick for pedestrian only areas and pavements etc.
As always the substructure design and compaction must be suitable for the anticipated load and overall exposure e.g. generally in accordance with BS 5750, plus the most suitable jointing / pointing material also being selected to suit this exposure e.g. the structural performance taking into account the environmental conditions during the installation and curing.
Today, because of the natural beauty and almost unlimited design possibilities with small format natural stone sets, with many traditional and regional patterns having been developed for laying over the years, there is also a growing trend for natural stone setts to be used for domestic driveways and patios. This is especially for the production of striking features such as stone circles or the wonderful herringbone patterns of Porphyry Stone Setts for example. On larger driveways with anticipated use by 4X 4’s and delivery vehicles, we strongly recommend maintaining the minimum Sett thickness of 100mm, but for decorative features and edgings in domestic pathways and patios there are good quality natural stone setts available in a huge range of stone types and colours from all over the world. These are from as low as 40mm depth which are suitable for limited pedestrian traffic areas only, or with depths from 50/60mm upwards for domestic / more limited traffic areas.
For more advice or assistance with your specific paving project, please call 01257 266696 for FREE Expert Advice during normal office hours, or you can email us at any time to: sales@nccstreetscape.co.uk and we will get back to you just as soon as we can. Thank you.