Most Locks Heath properties sit on a former agricultural, flat plain, so Indian Sandstone here comes down to natural riven sandstone slabs, each with genuine colour and texture variation, laid and pointed. Locks Heath’s own driveways are shaped by many original driveways across the estate reaching the end of their life at roughly the same time. That makes it a strong fit for period and character properties where a manufactured unit would look out of place — worth knowing that as a natural stone it benefits from sealing and can need occasional re-pointing over its life.
About Indian Sandstone
Indian sandstone is a natural riven stone, quarried and split rather than moulded, so every slab carries genuine colour banding and surface texture variation that a manufactured product can’t fully replicate. It is laid on a mortar bed over a properly prepared base and pointed between the slabs, and works particularly well on period and character properties where a manufactured concrete or porcelain unit would look out of place next to original brickwork or stonework. Being a natural stone, it benefits from sealing to help resist staining, and like any natural material it can need occasional re-pointing over its life as joints weather — a genuinely different maintenance reality to a manufactured slab.
Best suited to: period and character properties, patios, paths, and driveways where a natural stone look matters
Less suited to: a completely uniform, unvarying colour and texture across every slab
Ground & property in Locks Heath
Locks Heath was built out across the 1970s to 1990s on what was formerly strawberry-growing farmland, and because so much of the estate went up in the same era, a large number of its original driveways are now reaching the end of their life at roughly the same time.