English Houses: pebble dash & crazy paved surround

And here's something we couldn't understand at first. The house we bought in Cambridge so many years ago was described in the Estate Agent (Realtor) leaflet as having pebble dash front and a garden pool with a crazy paved surround (what?). 'Surround' isn't a noun in American English; of course, it comes from the verb 'to surround' and it means something around something else. Then, 'crazy paved' isn't a verb in American English; but of course it means being paved crazily.

Crazy paving and its disadvantages

It still wasn't clear what the crazy paved surround was all about until we went to see the house. There in the back garden (not yard)* was a small pond with a concrete-tiled area around it, much like in this photo. The fact that the tile pieces were not of regular size and shape made it 'crazy'.

The other day, someone was trying to find our current house and asked me on the phone, "Is it the one with pebble dash on the side?". I had to stop and think, because I don't usually consider this house having pebble dash. But indeed, the whole west side of the house is pebble dashed!

As in the photo, you can see that pebbles are embedded into concrete. I was amazed to see this being done once while renovating, the builder having a bucket of pebbles and throwing them by the handful at the wet concrete. Some fell off and we had to clean up later. And much later, more fall off, as you can see from the empty pockets here.

Pebbledash on a house in England

Pebble dash is characteristic of inter-war houses, built between the Great War (World War I) and the Second World War (World War II) or soon thereafter. It isn't much used now: must be the labour costs are too high, to have someone standing there throwing pebbles at the house.

Just for comparison, here is an American 'crazy paving' – stencilled on at Trimble Hot Springs!

Crazy paved stencil in America

* A 'yard' in England is a paved area, like a courtyard; and 'garden', as I've said previously, means 'lawn + flowers'.