Garden staircases in Maidstone. Steel stairs for sloping gardens and raised patios.

Outdoor steps for a town built on two hills

Here the back door often opens onto a raised patio or terrace, with the lawn well below and only worn brick steps or a grassy bank between them. A first-floor flat may lack even that. If you're adding an extension, our guide to steps from a kitchen extension to the garden covers levels, landings and the rules. Maidstone grew where the Medway cuts through the Greensand Ridge, so the town spreads over two facing hills, with Penenden Heath higher still beyond the centre. The Len runs through Mote Park to the Medway, and the Loose stream has cut its own valley to the south. Between them a level back garden is the exception, whether behind a Victorian terrace, a 1960s house in Madginford or a cottage near Loose. Loose Hill was steep enough that carters once hired extra horses for the climb.

Garden staircases for Maidstone plots, from survey to fitting

The shape of the garden sets the design. Where a valley-side plot runs long enough, one straight flight can take the whole drop; where it does not, or the fall is deep, split-level or curved garden staircases break the climb with landings. Behind a narrow town terrace, a quarter-turn folds the flight to fit the plot, and a spiral reaches an upstairs balcony above a small yard. Balustrades guard open edges, and handrails run the length of each flight. Plain vertical bars suit an older cottage, and slimmer flat bars suit a newer house.

Every job starts from a free site survey; where a visit is awkward, we can survey by video. You approve our drawings, and the price is agreed and fixed before fabrication begins. After that, the staircase is made and professionally spray painted in our workshop, with galvanised or powder-coated finishes as options. Once it is ready, our own fitters can have it in place in as little as a week.

Ragstone, quarry faces and clay

The ragstone quarried for centuries at Allington, Tovil and Boughton Monchelsea comes from the Hythe Beds, where hard bands of rag alternate with soft, sandy hassock. At Boughton Monchelsea, where the village's last ragstone quarry closed in 1960, two 16th-century houses at The Quarries stand on a far older quarry floor. Elsewhere around Maidstone some back gardens still end at a quarry face, a rock step that external stairs can bridge. Nearer the Downs the ground turns to Gault clay, once dug for bricks at Bearsted. Where clay or made ground is present, we assess the ground during the survey before deciding the foundation arrangement.

Planning rules across Maidstone borough

Maidstone Borough Council handles planning here. Planning rules don't single out garden steps, but a raised platform, landing or balcony more than 30cm above the ground can need permission. The borough has 41 conservation areas, among them Loose Valley, Boxley, Bearsted and The Quarries at Boughton Monchelsea. In the Holy Trinity conservation area, around Church Street and Union Street, an Article 4 direction brings further alterations under planning control. Flats and listed buildings carry extra restrictions. We look at how these rules bear on your address before preparing drawings, though the decision always rests with the council. Our guide to planning permission for garden stairs explains the national rules. Aylesford, just downstream, comes under Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council.

From the Downs at Boxley south to Linton

North of the town, the North Downs scarp rises behind Boxley within the Kent Downs National Landscape, and Detling and Hollingbourne sit on its slope. We install garden staircases, balustrades and handrails there and in Bearsted, Otham, Allington, Barming, East Farleigh, Coxheath and Linton. Our Sevenoaks and Otford page covers the Greensand Ridge further west.

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