Patio on sloping ground - Patio on sloping ground - help needed!

[Patio_newbie]

I am planning laying a patio following the guidelines in this rather superb site (well done folks!) but am not sure about perimeter walling.

Patio will be about 8M wide across the house and 6M long on an existing lawn at the back of the house. Trouble is the ground slopes away about 3-400mm at the end furthest away from the house.

My plan was to put footings all around the perimeter (digging deep closer to the house ) and lay a small retaining brick wall then infilling with hardcore/Mot 1 prior to bedding/slabs.

Is this a bit of an overkill? Do I need to dig the sides/build side wall or just the lowest end?
Do I need to lift ALL the turf up?
Is there an easier way? Do I really need Mot1 for only light foot traffic?

Thanks

[Tony McC]

Would it be possible to 'terrace' the patio and so reduce the amount of build-up required? You could have, say a 150mm step close to the house, then 4-5m of patio with 100mm of endfall, and a final step down to garden of 150mm or so. That would save helluva lot of build-up and retainer wall construction.

[Patio_newbie]

Good idea, what do I do at the sides in terms of preparation?

[Tony McC]

This is another of those "I can't see the site" problems, but a flag-on-edge would seem to be the simplest answer.