Coursed sandstone
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Squared blocks laid in level courses, the standard face of most Victorian Leeds terraces and villas. The easiest to match, because the coursing height gives us something exact to work to.
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Our specialism · stone
The stone craft is what sets us apart from every other Leeds builder. Stone-built and stone-matched extensions, garden walls, steps and reclaimed stone patios, a lot of it in reclaimed Yorkshire stone that already looks a hundred years old. Led by Simon, 27 years in the trade.
Stone matching
Most extensions look bolted on: the wrong brick, or render, against original stone. Ours are built to disappear. On a stone house we build the outer leaf in stone that matches, brick-matched properly where the house is brick, or a reclaimed Yorkshire stone leaf coursed to your original walls so the join goes away.
Almost nobody else in Leeds offers stone-matched extension work, and it's what makes a new room look like it was always part of the house. The rest of the job runs like any of our extensions: engineer designed, building control approved, public liability at £5m, guarantee in writing.
More on how an extension runs, from footings to handover, on our house extensions in Leeds page.
Got new work going up against old stone? Send a photo of the house and we'll tell you what it'd take to match it.
Get a written quote →Reclaimed Yorkshire stone
In plain English
Reclaimed Yorkshire stone is sandstone and gritstone salvaged from old Yorkshire buildings, walls and mills as they come down. It was quarried a hundred years or more ago, has already weathered to its final colour, and gets cleaned and re-dressed for a new job. It isn't new stone made to look old. It's the real thing, used again.
01Quarried 100+ years ago
New stone reads new for a good twenty years while it weathers in. Reclaimed has already done that weathering, so a wall or patio we lay this spring looks like it's been part of the house since the street was built.
02A century already stood
Longevity is the practical bit. Because this stone has already stood for a hundred years, we know exactly how it wears, with no twenty-year wait to find out.
03Every load picked by hand
From reclamation yards around Leeds and Batley, matched on bed height, face and colour against samples taken from your job. It only comes in as old buildings come down, so it takes longer to source than a merchant's pallet, and we allow for that when we quote.
Trusted with the real thing
Reclamation is careful, accountable work, and it isn't only back gardens. An academy school brought Simon in direct for the reclamation of its Victorian stone, and it took months of working with the council to get the job over the line before a stone moved.
It covers several different things, and which one your house is built in decides what we can match it with. In plain terms:
Squared blocks laid in level courses, the standard face of most Victorian Leeds terraces and villas. The easiest to match, because the coursing height gives us something exact to work to.
Coarser, harder and darker, and it weathers almost black in a city. Common on older and higher ground out toward the moors. Match it with new stone and the difference shows for twenty years.
Uncoursed stone of mixed sizes, fitted together as it comes, the usual build for old boundary and field walls. Slower to lay well than coursed work, because every stone is a decision.
Stone sold specifically for building walls, either new from a quarry or reclaimed off a demolition. It is the raw material, not a style, and the same load can be laid coursed or random.
Thick riven paving slabs, often 600mm and up, lifted from old mill floors, yards and pavements. What people picture when they say a reclaimed stone patio.
Reclaimed is the real stone used again. Reproduction is new concrete or new stone cut and tumbled to look aged. We lay reclaimed, and we will tell you plainly when a job would be better off with new.
Four of these are our own work. The gritstone and random rubble photographs are library images, used with thanks under licence: image credits.
Why reclaimed
"People think reclaimed stone is just about the look. It is, but it's also the most honest material we lay. It's already stood for a hundred years, so we know how it wears, and we're just giving it another hundred."
Simon Hitchins · Urban Green Masonry & Landscapes
What we build
Alongside the extensions, the team's out most weeks on walls, steps and stone patios. For new stone underfoot we also lay large-format Indian stone and porcelain over on patios and paving, and the same coursing goes into stone porches at the front of the house.
Dry stone and mortared, in reclaimed or new Yorkshire stone, and brick where the house calls for it. New builds, and rebuilds where a wall's started to bulge or lean. Built to stand, not just to look right for a season.
Stone or brick · dry or mortared · retaining walls on blockwork
Stone steps up a sloping garden, gate piers and pillars, hearths, copings, and the odd feature that makes a garden feel finished. Cut and coursed to sit with the walls and the house, in the same stone, so nothing looks bought-in.
Steps · piers · copings · hearthsReclaimed Yorkshire flags, often 600mm, lifted from old yards and laid on a full new sub-base so they sit flat and drain right. A favourite job: a patio that looks a hundred years old the day we hand it over.
Reclaimed flags · new sub-base · lime-pointedAny of that sound like your job? The sooner you ask, the sooner we can start looking for the right stone.
Get a written quote →An old roadside boundary wall that had leaned for years, taken down and rebuilt day by day in its own salvaged stone on a proper footing. Six days' work, so you know exactly what you're paying for.
Day 1
The old wall down by hand, every stone worth keeping salvaged and set aside on the verge. What comes off the wall is what mostly goes back on it.
Day 2
A concrete footing dug below frost and poured, because the original never had one. That is usually why an old wall starts to lean in the first place.
Days 3-4
The salvaged stone coursed back up, best faces out, with through-stones tying front to back so it stands rather than just leans more slowly.
Day 5
The top course levelled off and new sandstone coping bedded on, cut to the run of the wall.
Day 6
Joints pointed in a lime mix so the wall can breathe, then cleaned down. The stone in it is the stone that was always in it.
Real jobs
Every photo here is ours, shot on our own jobs. There is stone work this page talks about that we still haven't photographed, dry stone walling and lime pointing up close, and we would rather leave it out than pad the grid with a stock picture of somebody else's wall.
Piers and walls coursed in stone, matched to the house it sits against.
We come and look at the stone before we put a number on it.
Get a written quoteor see the stone jobs in projects
Where the stone work pays off most
This corner is the same build as the extension in the hero at the top of this page, photographed mid-job: the new stone still going up against the weathered stone of the original house. The hero shows it finished. The stone is what makes it disappear. The rest of the job is an extension like any other, engineer designed and inspected at every stage.
How an extension runsWhy we're the right fit
A wall built without through-stones, or pointed in cement where it wanted lime, will look fine for a couple of winters and then start telling on you. These are the things worth asking any mason before you let them start.
Common questions
Alternatives
Reclaimed stone is what we're known for, and it isn't what every job wants.
Better when: you want natural stone underfoot at a friendlier price, on a house that isn't asking to be matched to old stone.
The trade-off: new sandstone reads new for a while, and it won't sit against a hundred-year-old wall the way reclaimed does from day one.
See Indian stone paving →Better when: the extension is modern and you want a sharp, uniform surface with next to no upkeep.
The trade-off: it's a manufactured tile, so it does the opposite of what reclaimed stone does: it never weathers, and it never will.
See Porcelain paving →Better when: you're still choosing and want reclaimed, Indian sandstone and porcelain lined up side by side with their price bands.
The trade-off: it's the hub rather than the detail, so you'll land back on one of these pages once you've decided.
See Patios and paving →Not sure which of these your house is asking for? Send a photo of the wall or the elevation and we'll tell you which way we'd go.
Send a couple of photos of the wall, the garden or the side of the house, and we'll come and look. You'll get a written, itemised, fixed-price quote, and a straight answer on whether reclaimed or new stone is the right call for the job.
Or call 07743 342155