Location
Burford, Oxfordshire
Stone
Cotswold limestone, with a dressed coping
Scope
New coursed wall with coping, and a curved edging wall forming a gravel bed

The problem

A courtyard behind an old inn is a difficult place to build. Everything around it is already there and already old — mullioned windows, a cast-iron spiral stair, existing walls carrying planters — and the ground drops and turns. New work has to sit into all of it without looking bolted on.

Courtyard at the Lamb Inn, Burford, before the work: bare ground beside the downpipe where new walling is to go, existing planter wall to the right
Before: bare ground where the new walling would go.

What we did

A new wall was built in coursed Cotswold limestone and finished with a dressed coping, set against the building and levelled off the downpipe. From its end, a curved low wall sweeps round to form the edge of a gravel bed and ties back into the existing courtyard wall.

The new coursed stone wall at the Lamb Inn with its fresh dressed coping, tools still out on the old wall beside it
The wall up and coped, tools still out.
Finished courtyard stonework at the Lamb Inn: the new coped wall and a curved edging wall enclosing a fresh gravel bed
Finished, with the curve run round and the gravel laid.

The result

Two pieces of new stonework doing quite different jobs — one straight and coped, one curved and low — reading as though they had always been part of the courtyard.