Pergolas, garden rooms and structures
Timber and steel pergolas, garden rooms and studios, screening and retaining — the structures that give a garden its architecture.
We design and build the structures that give a garden its second architecture: pergolas and colonnades in timber or steel, garden rooms and outdoor studios, privacy screening, retaining walls and garden buildings of every serious kind.
Like everything we build, they start below ground — posts on proper foundations, not bolted to a patio — and they are designed with the planning rules for your address already in mind.
Timber and steel, sized to your garden
A pergola is a frame for light and planting — over a dining terrace, along a boundary, or as a doorway between two parts of a garden. We size the timbers so it looks right and stays right; steel suits slimmer profiles and more contemporary gardens, oak and softwood suit period ones.
Rooms and studios, built as buildings
A garden room — office, studio, gym or summer room — is a building, and we build it that way: insulated envelope, proper foundations, electrics certified at the house end. Most fall within permitted development at 2.5 metres under the eaves, but conservation areas and listed curtilages change the arithmetic — our guide to planning permission for garden structures in Hertfordshire sets out the limits, and we check your address before drawing.
Screening, retaining walls, bin stores and bike stores get the same treatment: designed as part of the garden, built to disappear into it.
Structures that suit where they stand
A steel pergola that suits a Newhall courtyard in Harlow is wrong for a thatched cottage in the Pelhams; a garden room that sits quietly under a tree in Much Hadham needs the root protection designed in. Local constraints — conservation areas, Green Belt around Epping, proximity to boundaries — are drawn around, not discovered.
Do I need planning permission for a pergola?
A freestanding pergola under 2.5 metres in a normal garden is usually permitted development. Conservation areas, listed buildings and anything attached to the house can change that — we check at design stage.
Timber or steel pergola?
Steel for slim contemporary profiles and long spans; timber for warmth, planting and period settings. Both are built on real foundations; the choice is about the garden, not the budget.
Can you build a garden room to work from?
Yes — insulated, double-glazed garden offices with power and data, built year-round. Most are permitted development, and we handle any application needed.
How close to a boundary can a structure go?
Within permitted development, two metres from a boundary keeps things simple at 2.5 metres high; structures at the boundary have a lower eaves limit. We design within the rules or make the application for you.
Do you build retaining walls?
Yes — brick, stone, block and rendered, engineered for the ground they hold. Level changes are a speciality of ours; a wall that holds a terrace is part of the garden structure, not an accessory.
Start your project
Arrange a design visit and we will walk the garden with you, listen to how you want to live in it, and set out what a design and build would involve.