Garden staircases in Hastings and St Leonards. Built in steel for steep, tight gardens.

External staircases for steep plots and tight yards

Many Hastings homes open at the back onto a raised terrace, a high rear floor or a yard cut into the hill, so reaching the garden takes a staircase. Old Hastings fills the Bourne valley between the East and West Hills. The East Hill lift is the steepest funicular railway in the UK, and Salters Lane, one of the Old Town twittens, climbs sharply up the West Hill. St Leonards, laid out by James Burton from the late 1820s, rises inland from the seafront. As a result, many back gardens rise or fall steeply away from the house. A first-floor or lower-ground flat can reach the garden by its own external staircase.

What we build in Hastings, and how

Small Old Town yards suit a quarter-turn stair set against a boundary wall, or a spiral where the space is barely bigger than a landing. A straight flight is often simplest from a raised terrace, while a deep fall on a St Leonards hillside suits a split-level design with landings. Handrails and balustrades come in the same steel, and our overview of staircase designs compares the options. After a free site survey, in person or by video, you get drawings to approve and a price that is fixed before work begins. Next it is welded up and professionally spray painted in our workshop, and our own fitting team can install it in as little as a week once made.

Colours for weatherboard, stucco and sea air

In the Old Town, brick mixes with weatherboarding and tile-hanging, and the net shops on the Stade are black timber, so black or charcoal looks at home. On Burton’s stucco houses along Marina, pale grey suits, as does a dark shade taken from their ironwork. Seaward gardens take wind and salt off the Channel, so if yours faces the sea, ask about galvanising under the paint; powder coating is also available.

Sandstone, clay and slipping ground

Historic Hastings stands mainly on the Ashdown Formation, the oldest of the Hastings Beds, with Wadhurst Clay on the higher ground of both hills. In St Leonards, the cliff between Marina and West Hill Road slipped in November 2023, and in February 2024 a landslide below West Hill Road reached homes in Caves Road. The free site survey starts with the ground and the access, and the supports and foundations are chosen only once those are understood. Where there is evidence of unstable ground, or significant retaining work is needed, further specialist advice may be needed before the design is finalised.

Planning with Hastings Borough Council

Hastings Borough Council is the local planning authority. Its conservation areas include the Old Town, Burtons’ St Leonards and Warrior Square, and many older buildings are listed. Parts of West Hill Road, Caves Road, Grosvenor Crescent and Marina are also covered by landslide-risk Article 4 directions introduced by Hastings Borough Council, removing certain permitted development rights at the affected addresses. Flats lack a house’s permitted development rights. Before anything is drawn we confirm what your address needs, and where a planning application is required, the same drawings can be submitted with it.

Garden staircases around Hastings and into Rother

We fit garden staircases and outdoor steps throughout Hastings and St Leonards, from Ore and Clive Vale to Silverhill, Hollington and West St Leonards, and beyond the borough in Fairlight, Westfield, Battle, Bexhill and Rye. Further west on the Sussex coast, we also fit garden staircases in Brighton and Hove.

Request a free site visit in Hastings & St Leonards