The Brew Cabin

Hi Tony,

having registered i thought i would plague the forum with a second long standing problem.

I put some hexagonal slabs down as stepping stones in my mums garden two years ago in a gravel area on a full bed of mortar
these slabs were 450mm thin type ex Homebase
rough finish in grey
I even bought spares as they were on special offer!
but these have all been used up due to several unexpected factors including an unexpected excursion of a eight wheeler that was delivering a bulk load of sharp sand for the garage floor.

anyhoo
Homebase don't stock them now nor any of the sheds.

the local merchants look blank, and all the catalogues i've looked at don't have an equivalent.
shes a tough cookie and dislikes my temp repair using council greys that were hiding behind the garage.

so anybody know who supplied Homebase
or a suggestion of an equivalent

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I'm fairly certain that Homebase were supplied by Charcon, which is the pressed-concrete big brother to Bradstone. However, although textured paving makes an appearance in the 2004 Bradstone catalogue, it's only in the standard square format.

It's the same with Marshalls, TopPave, RMC - none of them have the hexagonal format in their current catalogues. There may be some small, local manufacturers that have them, or there may be a yard somewhere with old stock, but, as far as I can tell, hexagons are very much out of favour this year.

I'll check the database tomoorow, just to see if I've missed an obvious answer, but I'm fairly certain that, with the current level of interest in the imported sandstone, no-one is bothering with textured hexagons.

Whilst on the subject of hexagons I've got some in what I think of as WWII concrete. I don't know what it was about concrete in this period, but it seems quite different to concrete these days. I may have to make a few more hexagons ot fill up the gaps, and I wondered how I could achieve a similar effect. Is it something to do with the size of gravel they used?

The size/type of gravel varies throughout time and across the country. The older the concrete, the more likely it was to rely solely on local materials, rather than 'best quality' concreting sands and selected gravels from far-flung parts of the country.

The other great variable was the cement. Quality control was nowhere near as strict back then, and cement tended to be locally manufactured by small independent companies rather than the handful of multinationals that now dominate the market. Consequently, there was a degree of variation in shade and temperament that is less common nowadays.

I don't think you would be able to faithfully reproduce a 50-year old concrete, but it would be an intersting exercise.