Railings, estate fencing, bow top, vertical bar, driveway gates and side gates across Letchworth Garden City and SG6.
We supply and fit metal fencing and gates across Letchworth Garden City and the SG6 postcodes: railings, estate fencing, bow top, vertical bar, driveway gates and side gates, all galvanised and powder coated. The world's first garden city — Arts and Crafts cottages, planned terraces and consistent street trees set the pattern locally, and Letchworth Heritage Foundation design rules dictate fence styles, heights and finishes on most streets.
Generous, leafy plots — many gardens contain protected trees with TPOs, which decides how the posts are set and where a gate can swing to. We set out levels and hinge heights on site rather than working to a standard drawing.
Pixmore Industrial Estate and Works Road covers the commercial side of Letchworth Garden City, where heavier vertical bar railings and full steel gates with commercial ironmongery are the usual specification.
Access is planned around Letchworth Garden City (East Coast) and A505 / A1(M), with A1(M) J9 for deliveries of longer steel sections.
Letchworth Garden City was the first garden city, and its layout and architecture are protected through covenants overseen by the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation.
Icknield Way follows the route of the ancient Icknield Way trackway, and chalk geology sits close to the surface along much of its length.
Access is the first thing we check around Wilbury Road and Pixmore Way: longer steel sections have to come in past parked cars, so delivery and set-out are planned with you rather than sprung on the day.
Almost everything we fit here is residential: front boundary railings, steps and light wells, a pedestrian gate to match, and double gates across a drive where the opening takes them. North Hertfordshire District Council is the authority to check with if a frontage sits in a conservation area.
Sollershott West and Nevells Road form part of the original 1903 masterplan and are subject to the Foundation's design guidance.
Streets we work on regularly: Broadway, Norton Way South, Wilbury Road, Pixmore Way, Icknield Way, Sollershott West.
Leaves, gravel and windblown litter collect in a ground-level sliding gate track over time, and a build-up is one of the most common reasons a gate that used to run smoothly starts binding or stalling partway along its travel.
Regular clearing of the track, particularly after autumn leaf fall or after a period of wind, prevents debris from being repeatedly crushed into the track and becoming harder to remove.
A sports ground boundary usually needs to control spectator access on match days while staying open enough the rest of the week for community use, which pushes the design toward lockable gates on an otherwise low, permeable perimeter rather than a solid, high-security line throughout.
Ball-stop netting or higher panels behind goals is a separate specification from the perimeter fence and is chosen for containment rather than security, though the two are sometimes combined on the same run.
A cracked or failed weld at a metal gate's frame corner is usually a fatigue failure from repeated flexing rather than a one-off impact, particularly on a gate that's been slightly out of square for some time before the weld gave way.
Re-welding without first correcting the underlying rack or misalignment tends to fail again at the same point.
Composite fencing boards are a wood-fibre and polymer blend, usually clipped or screwed onto an aluminium or timber sub-frame rather than nailed directly, which avoids splitting the board and allows for its different movement characteristics.
Composite expands and contracts with temperature more than timber does, so boards are fitted with a small expansion gap at each end and between courses rather than butted tight, and a run installed without those gaps can bow or buckle in hot weather.
The sub-frame itself is usually still timber or aluminium posts rather than composite throughout, since composite isn't generally used as a structural post material.
A lap or closeboard panel can usually be cut down in width by removing boards from one edge and refixing the cut edge to the panel's own frame, provided there's still a batten or rail to fix into once the cut is made.
Concrete panels generally can't be cut at all, which is one of the practical reasons timber is chosen over concrete gravel-board-and-panel systems on an irregular boundary with several odd-width bays.
Whatever is cut, the new edge needs its own vertical support — either an extra batten screwed to the frame or, for a wider cut-down section, a slip post — so the panel doesn't flex or drop at the trimmed end.
Many panel styles have a clear 'good' face with a neater finish and a reverse face showing the frame, battens or rail ends, and getting this the wrong way round means the less tidy side ends up facing the client's own garden or the neighbour's, depending on convention and agreement.
Where a boundary is shared, it's worth agreeing in advance which side the good face should present, since local convention varies and assuming it defaults toward the neighbour without discussion can cause an avoidable dispute.
Checking panel orientation before fixing, rather than after several panels are already up, saves having to unfix and turn a run of panels that all went in the wrong way round.
Once a repair is finished we open and close the gate repeatedly to check it swings cleanly and latches first time, since a gate that only closes properly on the first attempt in calm conditions can still catch once it's windy or the ground has moved slightly.
We also check the diagonal brace, where fitted, is taking the load evenly rather than pulling to one side.
Where only one or two posts in a run have failed, individual repair is usually the more sensible option, but once roughly a third or more of the posts along a run show the same rot or movement, a full run replacement often ends up more reliable and no more disruptive.
Counting failed posts as a proportion of the run, rather than judging each one in isolation, gives a clearer basis for that decision than reacting to whichever post has failed most recently.
A part-run rebuild replaces a defined stretch of bays back to sound posts at either end rather than patching individual failures within a longer run, which gives a cleaner, more consistent result where damage is clustered.
Setting the boundaries of a part-run rebuild means checking the posts just outside the visibly damaged section too, since a post that looks fine next to an obviously failed one can still be borderline and best included in the same piece of work.
A boundary fronting a road used by vehicles is limited to 1m under permitted development, but corner plots have a second constraint: the highway authority's visibility splay, which can require even lower boundary treatment near a junction so drivers can see pedestrians and oncoming traffic.
These splays are measured as a triangle from a set point back along both roads and are sometimes fixed by a planning condition on the original build rather than by the general permitted development rules.
A solid fence built to the letter of the 1m rule can still be a highway safety problem on a tight corner, so it's worth checking the local plan or asking planning before finalising height on a corner boundary.
Older garages, outbuildings and some boundary walls built before the 1999 asbestos ban can incorporate asbestos-containing materials in flank panels, corrugated roofing or old fence panel infill, particularly on properties from the mid-20th century.
Disturbing suspected asbestos material isn't something to tackle as part of routine fence replacement — it needs a competent assessment and, if confirmed, removal by a licensed contractor in line with HSE guidance.
Where an older boundary structure looks like it might contain asbestos sheeting, the sensible step is to leave it undisturbed and get it checked before any adjacent groundworks begin.
A pergola post rocks where its footing has cracked or where the post itself has begun rotting at the base, and because pergola posts often carry a roof structure rather than just a fence line, a rocking post carries more consequence if ignored.
Repair generally means breaking out and repouring the footing with the post braced upright and level while the concrete cures, and checking the beam fixings at the top of the post at the same time, since a post reset out of plumb strains the joinery above it.
A repair quoted from an initial inspection sometimes turns out larger once work starts — a post probed as sound at the surface but soft further down, or a neighbouring post found to be equally close to failure.
Agreeing a clear process for confirming any change in scope with the client before continuing, rather than proceeding on assumption, avoids disputes about what was and wasn't included in the original repair.
A solid acoustic-style fence blocks noise well but also blocks the sightline that lets you see who's approaching the boundary, whereas an open mesh or railing gives good visibility but no noise reduction at all.
Where both matter, a part-solid, part-open design — solid to head height with an open topping, for instance — is a workable compromise rather than defaulting fully to one or the other.
A final check along the full run — hinges swinging freely, caps seated, fixings tight, gravel boards sitting flush — catches small issues that are quick to fix on the day but awkward to revisit once tools and materials have left site.
Checking gate latches and bolts actually engage properly under normal use, not just that they look fitted, avoids a callback for something that would have taken moments to adjust while still on site.
A brief look at the surrounding area — cleared spoil, protected surfaces returned to their original state, tools accounted for — is as much a part of finishing the job properly as the fence itself.
A self-closing hinge or spring closer on a pedestrian gate stops it being left open by accident, which matters on a boundary where the fence is only as secure as the gate that's routinely used.
On a school, nursery or pool boundary a self-closing, self-latching gate is often a specific requirement rather than an optional extra, and the closer needs enough force to shut fully without slamming.
Angle grinding a metal fixing or breaking out an old concrete footing throws dust and fine debris further than expected, which matters on a repair close to a neighbour's washing line, patio furniture or parked car.
Sheeting off the immediate work area and clearing debris before leaving site each day is worth doing even on a short repair, since a small job that leaves a mess behind causes disproportionate friction with a neighbour compared with the size of the work itself.
Where building work, an extension or a loft conversion is happening on an adjoining property, existing boundary fences and their footings are sometimes shifted, undermined or damaged by machinery or excavation.
It's reasonable to raise this in advance with a neighbour undertaking major building work, ideally recording the fence's condition beforehand with photographs.
Where a party wall notice has been served for related works, that process can sometimes address boundary condition issues as part of a schedule of condition, which is worth asking about.
RAL is a standardised colour matching system widely used for powder coating and factory paint finishes on metal fencing and gates, allowing a specific shade to be reordered consistently years apart.
Darker RAL shades, particularly reds and some greens, tend to fade faster under UV exposure than blacks and greys, since the pigments used to achieve those colours are often less UV-stable.
South-facing runs in direct sun for most of the day will fade noticeably faster than a shaded run of the same colour and coating, which is worth factoring in in when matching an extension to existing fencing.
Before a gate is automated, its weight, swing clearance and frame rigidity need to suit the motor type being considered, and a gate that's sound for manual use isn't automatically suitable for automation without checking.
We check the gate itself is fit for automation and refer the motor, control-board and sensor installation to a specialist automation engineer.
Coping stones or brick-on-edge capping along the top of a garden wall are often loosely bedded rather than solidly fixed, so drilling or clamping a fence post bracket into coping without checking it first can dislodge the coping itself.
A quick check by hand-pressure on each coping unit along the intended fixing line identifies any that are already loose, which is worth doing before committing to that wall as a fixing point at all.
Where coping is sound, spreading the fixing load across a bracket plate rather than a single point fixing reduces the chance of cracking the coping under wind load on the panels above.
A hairline surface crack in a concrete post that hasn't reached the reinforcement can sometimes be left or sealed, but any crack that's opened enough to expose or move the internal reinforcing rod means the post has lost structural integrity.
We treat a reinforcement-deep crack as a replacement rather than a repair, since a patched crack in that condition tends to reopen under the next significant load.
What suits the world's first garden city — Arts and Crafts cottages, planned terraces and consistent street trees best, with the frontage patterns first and the heavier specifications further down.
Heavier gates for yards, units, schools and car parks, with commercial ironmongery and full steel frames rather than domestic fittings.
Vertical bar railings for a firmer boundary: closer bar spacing, heavier sections and a taller frame where security matters more than decoration.
Traditional low estate fencing for open frontages, paddock edges, verges and long garden boundaries where a solid panel would block a view.
Plenty of Letchworth Garden City jobs turn out smaller than people expect, and if a rehang and new galvanised ironmongery will sort the gate we will say so instead of quoting for a replacement. Call 07885907880 or use the form.
If you are weighing up a metal boundary around SG6, the deciding factors here are generous, leafy plots — many gardens contain protected trees with tpos and what the neighbouring frontages already use. For a house frontage a low railing run with a matching pedestrian gate is usually the answer, with double gates only where the drive is wide enough to take them.
Full detail on galvanising, powder coating and how metal compares with timber on lifespan is on the metal fencing and gates page.
Wooden and metal gates · Garden fencing · Decking · Commercial fencing
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