Huntingdonshire
Turning an Awkward St Ives Frontage into One Imprinted Concrete Surface
A riverside market town where the frontages get wider the further you walk from the bridge. That is the single biggest factor in what an imprinted concrete driveway can do here.
Family run since 1990
Over 30 years installing decorative surfacing
Based in Sawtry
Local team, Cambridgeshire properties
Five star rated
Verified Google reviews
Imprinted Concrete in St Ives
The converted garage problem, and how a single pour solves it
St Ives divides neatly in two for our purposes. Around the Quay, The Waits, Bridge Street and the streets behind the Monday market, the houses are older, the plots are deep but narrow, and off street parking is often a single space reached through an archway or a shared entry. Head out along Ramsey Road, Houghton Road, Somersham Road and up to Hill Rise and the town opens into the estates built through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, where the standard frontage is a straight run of hardstanding beside a lawn, with a garage or a carport at the end of it that has usually been converted into a room by now.
That converted garage is why so many St Ives enquiries are about turning an awkward L shaped frontage into one usable parking area. Because imprinted concrete is poured and stamped as a continuous surface, the old drive, the old garage apron and the lawn can be brought together without the joins and level changes you get when new blocks or slabs are butted up to old ones. The pattern runs straight through the corner instead of stopping at it.
Ground conditions change quickly as you move away from the Great Ouse. Close to The Waits and the riverside meadows there are alluvial soils and river gravels, and levels are low, so where the surface water goes has to be settled before anything is laid. On the higher ground north of the town, towards the guided busway and the old railway line, it is heavier and slower draining. We would rather see the frontage and check what is under the existing surface than guess at the make up from the street.
Driveways, patios and paths are the three things we install. Read what each one involves or why people choose imprinted concrete.
Make It Your Own
Colours and patterns for St Ives properties
The older parts of St Ives are pale render, buff brick and pantile, and a heavy charcoal driveway can look severe against that. Sandstone, autumn brown and the softer greys usually work better in the streets around the market and the Quay. On the post war estates, where the brick is redder and the windows are white, slate grey and charcoal give a much cleaner and more contemporary result. Availability changes from time to time, so we confirm the current range when we quote.
- SandstoneNatural stone tone
- Brick RedClassic heritage
- Slate GreyModern charcoal
- Autumn BrownRich amber
See the full colour and pattern section for photographs of the finishes, or ask us to bring samples when we visit.
Before Anything Is Poured
Ground, access and drainage in St Ives
Two things shape a St Ives job more than anything else: the width of the access and where the water can go. Narrow entries near the town centre mean the material has to be handled with that in mind, and low lying frontages near the river mean the falls have to take water away from the house and to somewhere it can actually be dealt with. Imprinted concrete is not a permeable surface, so a channel drain or a designed fall to a suitable point is part of the layout, not an afterthought.
Recent Projects
Finished work worth comparing against your St Ives property
For a converted garage frontage, look at the buff European fan driveway with its stamped brick border in our projects section: the circular pattern gives an awkward rectangle a centre. For a narrow side access of the kind you find behind the older streets here, the charcoal riven stone path with galvanised channel drains is the more useful reference.
Close detail of a cobble setts finish, showing the riven texture and the pale antiquing highlight that gives the surface its depth. 
A full width front driveway in grey ashlar imprinted concrete, with a stamped cobble border and a linear channel drain at the pavement line. 
A charcoal ashlar driveway with a contrasting red stamped border, sweeping to a double garage.
Five-Star Rated
What customers say
EXCELLENT Based on 12 reviews on Google. These are the company's own Google reviews and are not attributed to any particular town.
Rated 5 out of 5.
Had these guys do my garden from a recommendation. They have done a fantastic job . My garden now looks amazing. Anyone who's thinking of having a garden makeover or a new drive I highly recommend this company. 10/10
Questions
St Ives imprinted concrete questions
- Do you cover St Ives for imprinted concrete driveways?
- Yes. St Ives is one of the towns Driveway & Decking Co. name in their service area, and we work from a base at Sawtry. Send the postcode through the quote form or call 07949 078999 and we will arrange a look at the property.
- My garage has been converted. Can the old apron become part of the driveway?
- Yes, and it is a common request in St Ives. The apron, the old drive and whatever lawn is being given up are broken out together and prepared as one area, then poured and stamped in a single piece. The pattern continues through the corner rather than changing direction where the old apron used to be, which is what makes the finished frontage read as one surface.
- The access to my house near the Quay is narrow. Is that a problem?
- It is something we need to see rather than something that rules the job out. Access affects how the ground work and the material are handled, and it can affect what is practical on a given day. Tell us about it when you enquire, and if you can, say roughly how wide the entry is and whether there is anywhere to stand a vehicle.
- Our frontage is low lying near The Waits. Where does the water go?
- That gets settled at the design stage. Imprinted concrete does not let water through, so we look at the existing levels, work out which way the surface can be laid to fall, and where there is no obvious outfall we build a channel drain into the layout. We would not lay a surface that pushes water towards the house or on to a neighbour.
- Which patterns suit the older streets around the market?
- Smaller scale patterns generally sit better with older buildings. London cobble and the brick patterns keep the same rhythm as the surrounding brickwork and setts, while a large ashlar slab pattern can look oversized on a short frontage. We bring the samples out so you can see them at the property rather than choosing from photographs.
- Can you lay a path down the side of the house as well as the drive?
- Yes. Side access paths are one of the three things we install, along with driveways and patios, and doing them at the same time as the drive means the same colour and a matching or complementary pattern can run through. It also avoids a second lot of preparation work later.
- Will an imprinted concrete driveway crack?
- Concrete moves, so imprinted surfaces are laid with control joints cut into them in a considered pattern, which is how the movement is managed rather than left to chance. The joints are placed to work with the pattern and the shape of the area. What we will not tell you is that a concrete surface can never crack, because that would not be true of any concrete.
- Do you do commercial work in St Ives as well as houses?
- We install for homes and for suitable commercial properties. Whether a commercial area is suitable depends on what will be driving over it and how it is used, so that is a conversation to have before quoting rather than after.
- How is the surface looked after once it is down?
- Routine cleaning and appropriate aftercare keep the appearance up, and we will explain what the finish you have chosen needs at the time. We deliberately do not publish resealing intervals or maintenance schedules on this page, because the right advice depends on the surface, the site and how the area is used.
- Can you match a driveway to an existing patio?
- We can work towards it, and often the sensible answer is to do both so they genuinely match. Matching a new pour to an existing surface that has already weathered is harder than it sounds, and we would rather be straight about that at the quoting stage than promise an exact match.
- How far ahead do you book?
- We do not publish availability on this page, because it moves. Ask when you enquire and we will tell you where things stand at that point rather than leaving a stale figure on a web page.
- How do I arrange a quote in St Ives?
- Fill in the quote form on this page with your postcode and a short description, call or WhatsApp 07949 078999. Telling us whether it is a driveway, patio or path and roughly how big the area is means the first reply can be useful rather than a request for more information.
Areas We Cover
Near St Ives
Each of these has its own page, written for that place rather than this one.
Get a Free Quote
Request a quote for your St Ives project
Tell the team whether you are planning a driveway, patio, path or another suitable imprinted concrete project. Include the postcode and an approximate size or a short description, and Driveway & Decking Co. can talk through the next step and arrange a quote or a site visit where that makes sense.
Prefer to talk it through?
- Telephone
- 07949 078999
- Message us on WhatsApp
- Address
- 23 Glatton Road, Sawtry, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PE28 5SY