Driveways, patios and gardens in Harrogate

Gritstone villas and workers’ terraces

Little of Harrogate existed before the middle of the 19th century: the centre was built mainly between 1850 and 1920. Its older houses are local gritstone under slate, with brick and render arriving on Edwardian streets. Better-off Victorians mostly built detached or semi-detached houses, while workers’ terraces are two storeys. Starbeck, by contrast, grew as a railway village built in brick.

Across the former Harrogate district, a quarter of homes are detached, against 15.9% across England, and 26.8% were built before 1919, against 20.3%.

Most houses in the conservation area have front gardens behind low stone walls and hedges, often with stone gate piers. A few small terraces, such as Nidd Vale Terrace and Providence Terrace, open straight onto the pavement and have no room for a car.

A plateau with steep edges

The town sits on a plateau at about 120 metres, with steep slopes down to Oak Beck, Crimple Beck and Star Beck, and streets such as Valley Drive and Cold Bath Road climb hard. On a slope, the gradient of the drive matters: the former borough council’s design guide warned that drives steeper than 1 in 12 can ground a car.

The higher ground is capped with clay till, a heavy, slightly sandy clay packed with blocks of local sandstone, and Starbeck’s soils drain slowly and become waterlogged in wet seasons. Water soaks away slowly in ground like that, so we plan the sub-base and drainage around it.

Flooding in the town comes from surface water, off the roads, saturated ground and small becks, rather than from rivers. North Yorkshire Council doesn’t allow surfacing that sheds water onto a neighbour’s property or the road, and gravel within a metre of the road may need its consent.

Dropped kerbs in Harrogate

Dropped kerbs here are a matter for North Yorkshire Council, which must give consent before any work starts. You apply online, and a crossing onto an A, B or C road will usually need planning permission first. The crossing is then built by the council or by a contractor it has approved, under its supervision. We’ll send the application to the council for you.

Frontages along the Stray’s verges, beside roads such as Oatlands Drive, Leeds Road and Wetherby Road, are a special case: the Harrogate Stray Act 1985 requires the council to keep the Stray free from encroachments. If your frontage meets the Stray, ask the council early.

Conservation areas

The Harrogate conservation area, designated in 1973, takes in the Duchy, West End Park, Victoria Park, High Harrogate, Valley Gardens, Leeds Road and Oatlands Drive. Starbeck Spa and Pannal each have a separate one. The appraisal says the council will resist the loss of original boundary walls and railings, and it counts paving over front gardens for parking in the Duchy as harmful.

Harrogate’s Article 4 directions cover painting buildings, solar panels in view of the Stray and office conversions on Victoria Avenue, not walls, fences or front gardens. Even so, demolishing a wall, gate or fence a metre or more high beside a road in a conservation area needs planning permission, and work on any tree with a stem 75mm or more across needs notice to the council.