Choosing the right material for your patio is the single biggest decision you’ll make about the project. The wrong stone in the wrong garden ages badly. The right stone, properly installed by an experienced family team, transforms your outdoor space and keeps looking better year after year.

Our family team has been laying natural stone patios across Hampshire since 1996. We’ve worked with every material, in every garden type, against every kind of brickwork. The pages below explain what we install, when each material works best, and what colour and finish options are available in each category.

Use these pages to narrow down your shortlist, then get in touch and we’ll bring samples to your site visit so you can see them in your actual Hampshire daylight, against your actual home, before committing to anything.

How to choose between them

If you’re not sure which material is right for your garden, here’s the family-business shortcut we use with most customers on a first site visit:

• Traditional Hampshire home (period cottage, Georgian, Victorian)? Sandstone — almost always. The warm tones complement old brickwork, and the natural variation suits character properties.
• Contemporary new-build or modern extension? Porcelain or limestone. Both give the clean, refined look that works against rendered or grey-brick modern architecture.
• Large garden with dramatic landscape design? Slate — particularly Brazilian multi-colour. It carries scale brilliantly and contrasts with planting.
• Family garden with high traffic, dogs, children, BBQs? Porcelain. It doesn’t stain, doesn’t fade, doesn’t need sealing, and the slip-rating handles wet kids in flip-flops.
• Coastal home (Gosport, Hayling Island, Portsmouth)? Porcelain or specifically-rated limestone. Salt air destroys sub-spec sandstone over time.
• Smaller garden where the patio is the main feature? Sandstone or premium porcelain — whichever sits best against your existing materials.

None of this is a hard rule. Plenty of beautiful Hampshire patios break the conventional wisdom. The genuinely useful step is to book a free site visit and see actual samples against your actual house.

Pricing across the categories

Material cost is one part of the patio budget, but it’s rarely the biggest. Sub-base preparation, jointing, edge restraints, drainage and labour usually add up to more than the surface material itself. As a rough family-business guide, here’s what to expect:

Material	Supply only (per m²)	Supply & install (per m²)
Indian Sandstone	£25-45	£100-160
Limestone	£35-65	£120-180
Slate	£40-70	£130-190
Standard Porcelain	£30-55	£130-190
Premium Porcelain	£55-90	£160-230

Prices vary with size, calibration, finish and stockist. Every project we quote comes with a clear written breakdown so you can see exactly what the labour, materials and groundwork costs are.

What we install — and what we don’t

We’re an independent family business. We don’t take supplier commission, so when we recommend a material it’s because it’s the right material, not because it pays us best. We install from Marshalls, Brett, Stonemarket, Bradstone, Pavestone, London Stone, Strata Stones, and most major UK suppliers.

What we won’t install is unfair to you to lay — uncalibrated cheap imports, porcelain with no slip rating, slate so thin it cracks under foot traffic. If you’ve been quoted a price that looks too good to be true, ask what the actual stone specification is.