Guilloche Pattern from 12th Century Roman times

This was a project in Knutsford, Cheshire.  Driveway to country house built late 1800.  The project was overseen by Tony McCormack.of paving expert.com .plans drawn by tony .http://www.pavingexpert.com/images/blogpix/OldCroft_guilloche.jpg .now for some working pictures. Jobs like this don't come along very often, and it's a real treat to be involved in a project that will restore a property to its true former glory, using original materials as far as possible, and celebrating the skills of a genuine streetmason. The photo above was the scene late on Saturday afternoon with Cookie in the foreground laying the sandstone setts and Sean just behind him fettling some of the Egyptian granite. In a frenetic nine-hour shift, with just an hour for a barbecue lunch kindly provided by the client, just over half of the guilloche was completed.

As mentioned previously, the centre of the feature is a 5m diameter silver-grey granite circle custom-cut and supplied by McMonagle Stone in Ireland (even when haulage is added on, they are considerably cheaper than any of the UK suppliers). The outer bands are dark basalt setts originally from North Wales but salvaged from a disused tram shed in a neighbouring town. The guilloche itself has been formed using the sandstone setts salvaged from the original driveway, and the whole is surrounded by a double course of silvery "Tan Tops", a Cornish granite sourced from a reclamation yard. The infill pieces are a silver Egyptian granite used to give us additional contrast. granite setts this picture taken from the roof by Cookie of granite setts
Aco drains set to radius aprox 20m and start of european fan pattern with my templates
over view of cutting of setts to fan all cut by hand with masons chisel
As can be seen in this close-up shot of a single fan, the number of cut setts is kept to an absolute minimum - we reckon on 6-8 per fan, and these are predominantly simple trimming cuts rather than full dressing cuts, so speed of laying is maintained as far as is practicable. Also note how the outermost course of each fan has been laid using a lighter-coloured sett. These are new white-grey Egyptian Granite setts, with a basic cropped texture but as there is only the once course per fan, that won't impede traffickability for pedestrians too greatly. What it does do, however, is gently emphasise each fan as an individual.in granite setts

You can just make out the frame in the photo above. The full assembly comprises a number of individual 'fans' that are bolted together to ensure accuracy, and then set to level to guide precise position and levelling of the setts as they are laid inside each 'frame'. There are almost as many methods for laying sett fans as there are tradesmen capable of doing the job properly, but this, for me, is the simplest, speediest and least problematical method.
On the subject of ironwork, the cast iron gratings to the Aco Channel Drain have now been fitted to the channel installed at the curving boundary between the circular layout setts and the fan pattern. We're really pleased with these, as the simple iron grating suits both the property and the sett paving. You'd swear they'd been there since the house was built, and by allowing them to follow the curve, they seem such a natural break between the two layouts.  The fan pattern layout has really come into its own since they have 'spread out' over the widest section which shows off this pattern to its best effect. This latest photo shows the progress albeit without the paving to the recess tray (heavy duty 750x750 covers supplied by Clark Drain) being completed, but the tray was only installed this morning, so needs 24 hours to allow the bedding mortar to harden before it's loaded with all those setts.Resin mortars are significantly faster to apply, and have the advantage of leaving the pavement surface in pristine condition with no stains or blemishes, but they ain’t particularly cheap. However, it seems silly to spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar at this stage, so it was decided, through gritted teeth (and mixed metaphors), to bite the bullet and go with the resin mortar. After a lengthy discussion, UK supplier of Romex mortars, McMonagle Stone, came up with a fair price for the several tonnes of mortar that would be needed to fill the gaps between all those setts (Cookie from The Original Stone Paving Co. reckons there’s close on 48,000 of the buggers!)
this next link takes you to my website granite setts

You can view more of our work on our websitegranite setts