Builders in Caterham, from the valley to the hill.

Caterham sits in a gap in the North Downs, and the shape of the land is the first thing any builder notices. Caterham on the Hill spreads out across the plateau, laid out around the old Guards Depot and the wide roads that served it. Caterham Valley runs below, threaded along Godstone Road and Croydon Road with the railway line and the station at the bottom. Between the two, streets like Harestone Valley Road and Stanstead Road climb the sides of the valley, and the gardens behind them rise or fall away sharply. It makes for a handsome, green town with proper views. It also makes for building work that needs thinking about before anyone turns up with a digger.

The housing stock is a mix, and each part of it wants something different. The valley has Victorian and Edwardian villas, generous rooms, high ceilings, tiled paths and bay windows, often with a narrow side return begging to be filled in. Around them sit rows of 1930s semis with pebbledash, hipped roofs and long back gardens, the classic candidates for a rear extension and a loft conversion in the same year. Up on the hill there is post war housing, later infill, and the Village development on the old barracks site, where converted military buildings stand alongside newer houses and apartments. Then, out towards Woldingham and Chaldon, you get large detached homes on big plots and older cottages that have grown piece by piece over a century.

Slopes are the local speciality. A plot that falls three or four metres from front to back changes the groundworks completely. It can mean stepped foundations, retaining walls, a proper look at where surface water goes, and more muck to take away than a flat site would ever generate. On the chalk and clay of the downs, drainage deserves respect. We survey levels and dig trial holes before we price, so the awkward part of the job is costed at the beginning rather than discovered halfway through. Access matters just as much. Narrow roads on a gradient, cars parked both sides and a driveway that drops away are all normal here, so we plan deliveries, use smaller vehicles where we have to, and keep the street usable for the people who live on it.

Planning in Caterham sits with Tandridge District Council. A lot of straightforward single storey work in the valley falls under permitted development, but the moment you go bigger, go up, or go anywhere near the Green Belt land that wraps around Woldingham, Chaldon and the lanes south of the town, you are into a full application. There are conservation areas and listed buildings in the district too, and a plot within the Surrey Hills landscape brings its own expectations about materials and scale. We do not employ architects. We work alongside architects and designers, either yours or ones we have known for years, and we give them the buildability side of the picture early so the drawings that go in are the drawings that can actually be built.

We are a Reigate design and build company and we have been building in this corner of Surrey since 1996. Caterham is a straightforward run for us along the A25 and up the M23, which means an early start on site and a quick visit if something needs a second look after handover. We are CHAS Accredited, SSIP Assessed and fully insured, and we handle the whole job in house or with trades we have used for years. Groundworks, structure, roofing, joinery, kitchens, bathrooms and decorating. From the soil in the ground to the keys in your hand.