Fencing in Little Chalfont
Wide frontages, and a side passage you can barely get a barrow down.
Little Chalfont is a twentieth-century village. It grew out of the station and the White Lion Road rather than around a church, and the plots show it: generous frontages, deep back gardens, mature trees on most boundaries.
What catches people out here is not the ground. It is getting to the back.
Getting to the back garden
A wide house front does not mean easy access. A good half of the gardens we quote in Little Chalfont are reached down a side passage a metre across, with a gate at one end and a step at the other. Everything goes through it by hand — posts, panels, forty bags of postcrete — and every barrow of spoil comes back out the same way.
That is why the form asks. A thirty metre closeboard run with easy access off the drive prices around £4,160 to £4,840. The same fence through a narrow side gate is £4,580 to £5,320, and through the house £5,060 to £5,880. It is not a penalty for having an awkward garden. It is between half a day and a full day of extra carrying, and it belongs in the price.
Walk it before you answer. If a barrow goes through with your hands still on the handles, that is Drive or double gate. If you would have to turn it sideways, that is Narrow side gate. If there is no way round the outside at all, pick Through the house and we will arrive with dust sheets.
Price it now →Fences under trees
Most boundaries here run beneath something mature — beech, oak, the odd conifer belt left over from the fifties. Shade and leaf litter keep a fence damp for months on end, and the shaded face always ages faster than the sunny one. You get green growth on the north side and boards that stay wet long after the rest of the garden has dried out.
Two things help more than people expect. A concrete gravel board keeps the timber clear of the leaf mould that piles up at the base, which is exactly where rot starts. And raking the litter away once a year does more for the life of a fence than any amount of stain.
What we build in Little Chalfont
All services →Closeboard / featheredge
The workhorse. Built on site, board by board. 20+ year life.
from £140/mPrice thisPanel (lap / waney)
Fast, tidy and kind to the wallet. Great for garden boundaries.
from £112/mPrice thisPicket
Cottage-front charm. Low, friendly, painted if you like.
from £116/mPrice thisSlatted / contemporary
Clean horizontal lines. The one architects ask for.
from £183/mPrice thisPost & rail (agricultural)
Paddocks, drives and field boundaries. Stock-proof options.
from £65/mPrice thisRepairs & replacement bays
Snapped posts, blown panels, storm damage. Sorted.
from £108/mPrice this
In and around Little Chalfont
All of these are a short run for us, and priced exactly the same as the town itself.
- Chalfont & Latimer
- Latimer
- Chenies
- Chorleywood
- Chesham Bois
- Amersham
- Chalfont St Giles
- Heronsgate
- Sarratt
- Flaunden
Little Chalfont questions
Why does access change the price by so much?
Because it changes the hours, not the materials. A tonne of posts and panels that comes off the van straight onto a drive takes minutes. The same load carried thirty metres down a side passage, one piece at a time, past a bin store and a step, takes most of a morning — and the spoil from thirty post holes has to come back out the same way. The quote breakdown shows the difficulty multiplier so you can see exactly what it added.
Can you get a digger down the side?
Almost never, and we would rather tell you that than turn up and find out. Anything under about a metre wide with a step in it means hand digging, which is what the access answer in the form is allowing for. Where there is a drive or a double gate we bring the right kit and the job moves a great deal faster.
Our garden backs onto woodland. Will the fence last as long?
The shaded side will not, and it is worth knowing that at the start. Boards under permanent tree cover stay damp, grow algae and go soft years before the sunny side does. We fit concrete gravel boards so nothing structural sits in leaf mould, keep the timber clear of the ground, and if you rake the litter off the base each autumn you will get most of the difference back.
The only way in is a shared drive. Is that a problem?
Not for us, but it may be for your deeds. If our route to your garden crosses a neighbour’s land or a shared driveway, whether you have a right of access over it is a question for your title rather than for a fencing firm. Have that settled before we book a date, and tell us in the notes so we plan the drop properly.
More of the general ones on the FAQ page.