About 11 minutes from our Broadmeadow yard
Wallsend was a coal town before it was a suburb, and the creek and the old mines still shape its backyards. Fernline Landscapes sorts the water, the ground and the garden, eleven minutes from our Broadmeadow yard.
NSW contractor licence, structural landscaping: Lic. 000000C (demo)
In Wallsend the ground has a history. Find out where the water goes and what's underneath before you choose a paver.
Wallsend grew around the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company's colliery, which opened in 1861, and the neighbouring township of Plattsburg, the two joined along Nelson Street. Ironbark Creek runs through the town centre in a concrete channel owned by Hunter Water. In the June 2007 storm, the one that put the Pasha Bulker ashore at Nobbys, floodwater inundated homes and businesses and cut across the town centre, and a plan to widen and naturalise 660 metres of the channel is due to start construction in 2027. The old workings are still underneath: in March 2023 the ground subsided on Fogo Street, outside Wallsend Diggers.
Wallsend was built by miners, and you can still read it in the streets. The old town centre sits low along Ironbark Creek, with Nelson Street running through it, and the houses climb the hills on either side. That shape decides most backyard jobs here: when it rains hard, water runs down the hills toward the creek, often straight through your yard on the way.
In June 2007, the storm that grounded the Pasha Bulker at Nobbys sent floodwater across the town centre, through homes and businesses. Hunter Water, which owns the concrete channel, is due to start widening and naturalising 660 metres of it from 2027. Until that's done, and even after, a Wallsend garden should be built on the assumption that a big storm will come through.
On your block, the water gets worked out before anything else: where it comes in from the street or the yard above, where it sits, and where it can leave. Then it gets a path. That might be a grated drain across the bottom of the driveway, a shallow grassed swale along the back fence, or a patio regraded to fall away from the house to a pit. If your lot is mapped as flood prone, the City of Newcastle's DCP also shapes the design, from open fencing across a floodway to limits on bringing in fill, so that's checked first.
What we won't do is the quick fix of building the yard up with soil to keep it dry. It usually sends the water next door, and on a mapped flood lot it can break the rules as well.
Most of Wallsend is in the Newcastle Mine Subsidence District, because coal has been mined under it since the 1860s. In March 2023 the ground subsided on Fogo Street outside Wallsend Diggers, and a second hole opened under a house on Platt Street. Events like that are rare, but they're a good reason to build a garden that copes with small movements. Where the ground is filled or undermined, your paving goes down as pavers on a compacted base rather than large slabs, and any taller wall is checked against Subsidence Advisory NSW's requirements before you get a quote.
Our yard is about eleven minutes away, straight out Newcastle Road, so a check on your drains after the first big storm is an easy trip.
Water from the yard behind used to run across our patio every storm. A drain along the back fence takes it round to the stormwater now, and the patio stays dry.
Dave, Wallsend · Sample review
Run-off from the street and the yards above, caught with grated drains and shallow swales and carried to your stormwater, instead of across the patio and under the back door.
Paving in WallsendPavers on a compacted base rather than one big slab where the ground is undermined or filled, so a section that settles can be lifted and relaid instead of broken out.
Paving in WallsendFront gardens and side paths for the older cottages near Nelson Street: a firm path, a tidy fence line and hardy planting that suits a small cottage yard.
Garden design in WallsendMost garden work is still fine. What changes is anything that blocks or stores water. In a mapped floodway, the City of Newcastle's DCP allows only small changes to ground levels for things like landscaping, and asks for open-type fencing where a fence across it can't be avoided. In a flood storage area, no more than 20 percent of the site can be filled, and fill mustn't block drainage from your neighbours. A retaining wall on a flood control lot can't be exempt development either. The council's flood information certificate for your lot shows which areas apply.
You can't stop it arriving, and on a Wallsend hillside you shouldn't try to dam it, because the water finds another way, often into your house or next door. What works is catching it at the boundary with a grated drain or a shallow swale and carrying it around the house to your stormwater connection.
For most garden walls, yes. The Fogo Street subsidence in March 2023 was over old mine workings, and most of Wallsend is in the Newcastle Mine Subsidence District for the same reason. Subsidence Advisory NSW's exempt list covers retaining walls up to 1m without its approval, while a taller engineered wall or a new structure may need it. We check your address and your job against that list before quoting.
Where the ground has been mined under or filled, pavers on a compacted base are the safer choice. If the ground settles, a few pavers can be lifted and relaid, where a slab cracks and has to be cut out. Concrete is fine on stable ground with control joints and a proper base. We look at your site before recommending either.
Plants that are happy with wet feet: native sedges and rushes like carex and juncus, lomandra, and bottlebrush for height. They hold the soil when water runs through, and they recover after a flood. We also keep beds and edging out of the path water takes to the creek, so the garden doesn't become a dam.
Wallsend has no heritage conservation area in the Newcastle LEP 2012, so the garden of an ordinary older house is your call. Some places are listed individually, like the Railway Goods Shed on Cowper Street, which is on the State Heritage Register. If your property is a listed item, changes may need consent, and we tell you before any design work starts.
A few photos and a rough idea is enough. We'll ring to book a free site visit, then send a fixed quote with a drawing.