Groundwork Contractors in Surrey
We've been doing groundworks across Surrey since 1970, from our yard in Dockenfield near Farnham — foundations, drainage, retaining walls and hard landscaping, for local developers, builders and private clients right across the west and centre of the county. Most of our work is the whole groundworks package on a residential build, from clearing the site through to slab level and the finished driveway.
Fifty-five years on the same patch is the difference you feel on a difficult site: we usually know what the Surrey ground is going to do before we open it up, and we'd rather tell you at quote stage than at dig stage.
Our groundworks services in Surrey
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Strip, trench fill and raft foundations, structural concrete bases for oak-framed and steel-framed buildings, and block and beam floors for sloping sites. We work from your engineer's drawings to slab level.
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Much of rural Surrey is off the mains. We design and install sewage treatment plants, septic tanks, pump stations and soakaways to Environment Agency standards, including old tanks that must be replaced under the General Binding Rules.
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West Surrey is sloping country, so retaining walls come up on most jobs. We specialise in LOGIX™ insulated concrete formwork and also build STEPOC™, reinforced block and sleeper walls — every one drained properly.
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Block paving, porcelain, resin and gravel driveways, patios and decking — built on a proper sub-base, from the groundworks up, with the drainage sorted.
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Site clearance, reduced level dig, cut and fill, muck-away and re-grading — the enabling work that gets a Surrey plot ready to build on.
Why developers and builders across Surrey use us
The majority of our work comes from clients we've worked with for years — Surrey developers and builders including Eavoak, Grangewood Southern, HH Hilder & Sons, Waverley Building Preservation and Rookery Barns, some over more than thirty-five years. People who could use any groundworker in the county keep using us, and that says more than anything we could write here.
Established 1970 — more than fifty years on the same patch
We own our plant — Volvo excavators and Terex dumpers, so we're never waiting on hired kit to start
CITB-qualified operators on every machine
One firm for the whole package — foundations, drainage, walls and landscaping dealt with together, so the levels and falls line up
We work to your professionals' drawings — architects, structural engineers and building control
Surrey ground: what we're used to
Surrey is not one kind of ground, and that matters more for foundations than anything else. Around Farnham and the greensand ridge you get free-draining sand — quick to dig, but trench sides that won't stand on their own. A couple of miles north or east and you're into the Weald clay, which shrinks and heaves with the seasons and dictates far deeper foundations, especially near mature trees, under NHBC Chapter 4.2.
A lot of the county also sits off mains drainage — much of the Surrey Hills, and the villages around Godalming and Haslemere — which is why treatment plants and soakaways are such a big part of what we do here. Knowing which ground will take a soakaway, which won't without a percolation test, and what the local building control teams and the Environment Agency will accept is often what decides whether a rural Surrey site can be built at all.
Sloping sites and the Surrey Hills
Much of west Surrey is on a slope, and a good share of it sits inside the Surrey Hills National Landscape (AONB), where planning is tighter and the ground is rarely flat. That means retaining walls and re-grading come up on most of our jobs here — cutting a level building platform into a hillside, holding back a bank behind a new terrace, or terracing a garden that falls away from the house. We build in LOGIX™, STEPOC™ and reinforced concrete to engineer's design, with proper drainage behind every wall.
Where we work in Surrey
Farnham is our home, but we work regularly across the county:
Guildford · Godalming · Haslemere · Cranleigh · Camberley · Woking · Farnham · Ash · Milford · Bramley · Wonersh · Hindhead · Churt · Elstead · Tilford · and the villages between.
If your site is elsewhere in Surrey, ring and ask — we travel for the right job. See all the areas we cover.
Common questions about our Surrey work
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West and central Surrey mainly — Farnham, Guildford, Godalming, Haslemere, Cranleigh, Camberley, Woking and the villages between. We're based in Dockenfield on the county's south-west edge, so the Farnham–Guildford–Godalming triangle is our core patch. For jobs further into east Surrey, ring and ask.
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Yes, regularly. Work inside the National Landscape often comes with tighter planning conditions and materials requirements, and we're used to building to them — including the drainage and retaining work that sloping AONB plots usually need.
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Both, though the majority is residential — new builds, barn conversions and extensions for developers and private clients. We also do commercial groundworks and civil engineering where it suits the plant and the crew.
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That's most of what we do. On a typical Surrey build we clear and level the site, put in the foundations and drainage, hold back any slopes, and finish with the driveway and terrace — one firm, one crew, one set of machines, so the levels and falls are dealt with together.
Talk to us about your Surrey project
We'll come and look, take levels if it needs them, and price the job properly rather than by the square metre over the phone.
We cover Guildford, Farnham, Godalming and the rest of Surrey, along with Hampshire. Get in touch or call Dan on 07808 781794.