Garden clearance in Altofts
The village takes its name from the Old English aldtofts, "the old curtilages", a curtilage being the plot of land that goes with a house. When yours has got away from you, a clearance is the quickest way back to a garden you can use. Affordable Gardens & Landscapes is a family run, fully insured business based in Knottingley, and we cover the whole of Altofts, Upper and Lower, for garden clearance and tidy ups: overgrowth cut back, brambles and weeds pulled, and all the garden waste taken away when the job is done.
Terraced yards in Lower Altofts
Altofts grew fast in the 1800s on coal mining and the railway, and the West Riding Colliery, owned by Pope and Pearsons, was the largest mine in the village. Its best-known housing, Silkstone Row, was the longest unbroken row of three-storey terraced houses in Europe until it was demolished in 1978. Two shorter terraced rows still stand on Pope Street in Lower Altofts.
Terraced gardens bring their own challenges. Often there is no side access, so every bag of cuttings has to go through the house or along a back way. Walls and fences are shared with neighbours on both sides, so cutting back has to stop neatly at the boundary. And in a small yard, a single buddleia, bramble or run of ivy can take over in one summer. Clearing a tight space well is about doing things in the right order: cut, bag and carry out as you go, keep the route through the house clean, and leave the yard swept rather than simply emptied.
Larger plots and village edges
Not every garden in the village is a yard. Altofts sits close to the River Calder and the Aire and Calder Navigation, and Experience Wakefield describes it as surrounded by countryside and waterways. Gardens that back onto open ground can have long boundaries where brambles, nettles and hawthorn push in from outside, so a clearance there often means taking a boundary hedge back to where it should be as well as sorting out the garden itself. Everything that is cut goes away with us, so nothing ends up dumped by a field edge or along the towpath.
What a clearance looks like
The day starts with a walk round to agree what stays: a shrub you like, a path, a shed, a plant someone gave you years ago. Then the long grass is cut down, brambles and nettles come out, hedges and shrubs are reduced to a size you can manage, and all the waste is loaded up and taken away. Trevour Bowden's review talks about a "very hardworking polite team nothing was to much for them" after the team cleared "our very overgrown gardens", and that is the standard every clearance should meet: proper hard work, done politely, with the garden left tidy at the end.
If a broken fence turns up once the growth is cleared, have a look at fencing in Altofts, and it can be talked through on the same visit.
When to book a clearance in Altofts
Hedges and thick shrubs can hold nesting birds from early spring. The RSPB's guidance is to cut hedges only between 1 September and 28 February, and under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is illegal to deliberately damage or destroy a wild bird's nest while it is being built or used. A clearance between autumn and late winter avoids that problem entirely and catches the garden when growth has stopped, so it stays tidy for longer afterwards. Summer clearances are fine for long grass, weeds and brambles, with hedges checked first and any active nest left alone until the young have flown.
After the clearance
A cleared garden often looks far bigger than anyone expected, and it is the best moment to decide what comes next. Bare soil left to itself will fill with weeds again within a season, so it pays to settle on a plan while the ground is clear: a lawn, some planting, gravel or a patio, or at least a cover over the soil until you decide. If what you want is simply to keep it tidy from here, regular visits can start straight away, and the hard work of the clearance is never wasted.
Getting a quote
Ring 07347 572509, Monday to Friday between 9am and 6pm. Tell us roughly how big the garden is, how long it has been left and, most importantly for a terrace, how we get in and out. Photos help a lot, especially of the access and the worst corner. There is more detail on our main garden clearance and tidy ups page, and the Altofts page shows everything we offer in the village. After a big clearance, regular garden maintenance in Altofts keeps it from getting overgrown again.
