Landscaping in Oldham

Oldham’s mill-town streets climb, and the gardens climb with them.

A great many plots on the older terraced streets near the centre, through Glodwick, Derker and Coldhurst, run steeply up or steeply down away from the house rather than sitting flat behind it.

It is one of the most common things we are asked about on this side of Greater Manchester.

The answer is almost never to flatten the whole thing.

Taking a sloping garden down to one level means either cutting into the hill and holding back what is left, or importing a large amount of fill and holding that up instead — and both of those put a retaining structure somewhere, usually across the middle of the space you wanted to use.

Terracing works better: two or three usable levels stepped up the garden, each one genuinely flat, with the fall taken in the walls and steps between them rather than spread thinly across the lot.

Where the retaining goes and where the water runs once the levels change are both survey-stage decisions. Reshape a hillside garden without answering the second one and you simply move the wet patch somewhere else.

There are really two building traditions inside the same borough here.

Closer to the centre, and out through Chadderton, Failsworth and Hollinwood, the housing is largely mill-era brick and later brick estates.

Head east into Saddleworth — Uppermill, Delph, Dobcross, Diggle and Greenfield — and much of it is local gritstone, weathered to a dark, warm grey.

A paving colour that looks handsome against red brick can look cold and wrong against gritstone, and the reverse is just as true. That decision is far harder to undo than a planting choice, so samples are worth holding against the actual wall in daylight first.

The same goes for walling: a retaining wall in a terraced Saddleworth garden is a permanent part of the view from the kitchen window.

We cover the Oldham side as a whole — Chadderton, Royton, Shaw and Crompton, Lees, Springhead, Grotton, Waterhead, Moorside, Failsworth and Hollinwood, plus the Saddleworth villages out along the A62 and A670 — coming in off the M60 and the A627(M).

If you want the full picture of how a whole-garden project runs from survey to finish, that is set out on our landscaping service page, and the same approach for city plots is on our landscaping in Manchester page.