Gardens here
Dense urban housing dominates — Victorian and Edwardian terraces from Old Portsmouth through Southsea to North End and Cosham. Tight rear plots, often six to ten metres deep, frequently with high brick walls on three sides. Some of the best hard-landscaping work in Hampshire happens on sites that look impossible on first viewing.
Newer developments — the Gunwharf Quays edge, Tipner, the western waterfront — bring different garden typologies: roof terraces, courtyard gardens, smaller plots with strong contemporary architecture. Salt exposure is a factor across most of the city.
Underneath, the city is mostly Palaeogene clay, silt and sand — largely unconsolidated, per the British Geological Survey's mapping of the harbour coastal plain — with made ground common on reclaimed and waterside sites. It's ground that needs checking with a trial hole rather than assumed from the postcode, the same approach we take right along this coast; see soils across the Solent.
Working the area
Forty to fifty minutes from the studio via the M27 and A27. Selective work — terraces and gardens that justify the hardscape investment, full-resolve briefs over patchwork.
Material decisions
Tight urban palettes work best — sandstone or porcelain in single-material treatments, brick edging in Ibstock multi or reclaimed Hampshire stock to match the surrounding fabric. Lighting matters disproportionately in deep, narrow walled gardens — a recessed LED strip can transform what's otherwise a dark corridor into something the household actually uses after dark.
Hard landscaping in Portsmouth's terraced gardens
A Southsea or North End rear garden is usually six to ten metres deep, walled on three sides, with no side access. That shapes the job before a single material is chosen.
No side access means every bag of sub-base, every slab and every barrow of spoil goes through the house. We plan for it in the programme and the price, and protect the route through before anything moves.
Walled plots hold shade and damp. Porcelain or slate stays cleaner than sandstone in a garden that never quite dries out. Old boundary walls often need repointing or a proper cap before new paving goes against them, and we'll flag that at the survey rather than pave up to a problem.
The ground varies more here than anywhere else we work: made ground on reclaimed sites, clay and sand elsewhere. A trial hole tells us what the sub-base needs.
Then lighting. In a deep, narrow garden, a few recessed lights decide whether the space gets used after six in October. We wire it in during the build, not after.
In practice
The studio archive doesn't yet feature a Portsmouth project. Garden composition, Warsash 2025 — with its integrated lighting and constrained-plot resolution — is the nearest reference build. Site visits to Portsmouth are free; we'll come to you and walk through specification.
Discuss a Portsmouth briefFrequently asked
Do you work in Portsmouth?
Yes, selectively — forty to fifty minutes from the studio. We take on terraces and gardens that justify the hardscape investment, and site visits to Portsmouth are free.
What's the ground like in Portsmouth?
Mostly Palaeogene clay, silt and sand, per the British Geological Survey, with made ground common on reclaimed and waterside sites. Worth a trial hole rather than a guess — more in soils across the Solent.
Have you completed a project in Portsmouth?
Not yet. Garden composition, Warsash 2025 — with its integrated lighting and constrained-plot resolution — is the nearest reference build.