What clients wrote.

Within the second stage of construction for the unique Australian Garden Project (found at the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne) are a series of large retaining and feature granite stone walls along with integrated paving using the same granite stone.

Richie has a great eye for detail which also saw him install a large expanse of natural stone slate steps within the same project. Approximately 70 slate slabs up to 3.7m in length, 800mm wide and around 200mm thick had to be individually placed using machine and hand. Not a task for just any stone mason or paving company.

Richie has since undertaken various small stone works directly for the Royal Botanic Gardens, and as always it’s a pleasure working with Richie.

I have worked with Richie Mallaby in the capacity of a sub-contractor and subsequently engaged him directly as a contractor to me on a number of occasions. He has performed a range of different types of work and has displayed his versatility and competence in each.

• Precision construction of cut Bluestone blocks in a circular layout of Melbourne’s famous Floral Clock
• Modification and relaying of natural stone pieces in the safety upgrade of the Grotto and Fern Gully in Kings Domain, Melbourne
• Refurbishment and re-creation of ‘natural stone’ rockwork of heritage listed water features in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne

Ritchie built our stone wall entrance at Paringa Estate with absolute care and attention to detail. It was fascinating for me to watch Richie ply his skill in turning a pile of sandstone rocks into the magnificent structure we now have to welcome our customers to Paringa Estate.

Richard is a highly skilled stone mason and the requirements of our garden design proved his ability and versatility as he skilfully and competently:

• built around 100 square metres of pathways and laid them with the most beautiful bluestone random paving
• dismantled, secured and rebuilt our 159 year old bluestone front stairs which had been unstable and crooked for many years
• placed and secured beautiful large bluestone stepping stones after carefully sourcing just the right shape and shade
• built several small garden walls from bluestone blocks as well as a subtle, unobtrusive garden edging

Apart from his stone masonry skills, Richard is also a very competent landscaper.