Create Drives

Aggregates for Drives - Ideas & Inspiration

Gravel and slate driveways are the most popular choice due to it being easy to lay, low maintenance, inexpensive, looks fantastic and there is such a wide variety of colours and textures to choose from, you can create your own unique driveway.

All shapes and colours

The variation in shape, size and colours between crushed aggregate, slate, rounded gravels or self-binding gravel gives unrivalled options over plain tarmac, concrete or paving and nothing looks better than a well laid gravel driveway. Gravel driveways are also a great option for the security conscious. See all the choices on our Gravels and Aggregates page.

If you have sloping ground the best choice is slate chippings, you can see our fantastic selection in our Welsh Slate Chippings section as being flattish in shape they tend to stay in place or self binding gravel where a more solid robust finish is required.

One of the main considerations when choosing an aggregate for driveways is displacement, nobody wants to end up with ruts in their drive or having to rake the gravel out time and again. Whilst a cheaper local pea gravel is okay to do the job, this is exactly what can happen as the gradings can be variable and won't neccesarily interlock which causes one of the main issues with having a gravel driveway which is excessive movement.

In order to alleviate this we would recommend an angular gravel, slate or chipping which due to its shape, will interlock together better and will lie flatter and not disperse as easily as rounded gravel.

An angular gravel such as the 20mm Golden Gravel or sub-rounded gravel like the Cheshire Pink with a grading of 10 to 20mm will be best. A larger sized gravel or slate up to a 40mm is also better as it doesn’t get stuck in the tread of the tyres.

All of our products intended for drives are listed below with the most popular gravels being Golden Gravel, Cotswold Gold, Dove Grey, Cotswold Buff which are all available in our Gravels and Aggregates section, and the slatechippings in blue and plum in both sizes, these are all listed in our Welsh Slate Section.

The choice of colours and textures is all down to you whether you want to match a local stone, keep within a chosen colour scheme, whether you are going for a plain neutral natural finish or a bright colourful contrast the choice is yours.

Quick transformation

What you will get is a quick and easy transformation to your home. See in the pictures below how some of our customers have transformed their driveways with our products.

Use our gravel calculator to find out how much you need. We normally recommend driveways are laid at a thickness of 50mm-60mm.

Make it Low Maintenance

The preparation and installation of good solid edges is critical to prevent spreading of the gravel and give a professional neat frame to the drive and contrast nicely with the gravel whilst keeping the product in place.

Stop those weeds

Weed membrane laid onto a well compacted MOT Type 1 layer or any solid surface, before the gravel is spread will prevent weeds coming through and keep it low maintenance.

Harder Wearing

Self Binding Gravel surfaces are made from crushed stone graded at 10mm to dust and comes in a beautiful rich golden colour. The material is laid onto compacted MOT Type 1 but then laid thicker that a normal layer of gravel as it is then rolled and wetted to give a smooth hard compacted surface with a loose gritty surface. This is traditionally used in parks, for cycle ways and for easier mobility areas where it won’t rut up or spread.

The Ultimate Driveway

The ultimate aggregate for driveway surfacing has to be resin bonded or bound. Where specialist dried aggregates are bound in clear resin and applied to concrete or tarmac drives, giving a fantastic stone carpet of coloured gravels is the most eye-catching, and cost-effective driveway you can get.

For more information on resin bound or resin bonding aggregate, visit our dedicated website http://resinbondedaggregates.com or contact us for more information on how you can transform your drive or pathway.

Last Updated: Monday 28 November 2016