The Lakeside Garden Centre in Crokerton, near Warminster, is a beautiful destination garden centre set around two ornamental lakes. When the owners decided to extend their café area, the project presented a genuine piling challenge — tight access between the lakes, a live and open garden centre with customers visiting throughout, and ground conditions that demanded both precision and specialist equipment.

This is exactly the kind of project we relish. Using our newly developed piling rig from sister company Noakes Engineering, we were able to install 220mm diameter steel-cased driven piles in conditions that would have defeated a conventional piling setup — working within metres of the lake edges, with oil containment booms deployed to protect the water, and without disrupting the garden centre's day-to-day operation.

The Challenge: Working Between Two Lakes

The café extension site sat adjacent two ornamental lakes, leaving an extremely narrow strip of land on which to work. The access corridor was tight enough to rule out standard piling rigs entirely — the equipment needed to be compact enough to manoeuvre in the space, yet powerful enough to drive 220mm steel-cased piles to the required depth and set.

Working this close to open water also brings environmental responsibilities. Before any work began, oil containment booms were deployed around the working area to protect the lakes from any potential spillage. These remained in place throughout the piling programme — visible in many of the site photographs — as a key part of our environmental management on site.

The Noakes Engineering Piling Rig

The equipment that made this project possible was our specialist piling rig, developed by Noakes Engineering — our sister company and manufacturing partner. This compact, purpose-built rig is designed specifically for restricted access piling, and it was precisely the tool needed here.

The rig's small footprint allowed it to operate on the different bank levels next to the main ornamental lake, while its digital control system — developed in-house by Noakes Engineering — gave our operative precise control over the driving sequence, blow count, and set monitoring from a single screen. This level of control is particularly important on a sensitive site like this, where over-driving could cause vibration issues near the lake banks.

220mm Steel Cased Driven Piles

The specification called for 220mm diameter steel-cased driven piles — a robust and reliable foundation solution that transfers load through the fill and soft upper soils down to the more competent strata beneath. Steel-cased piles are particularly well suited to sites like this where ground conditions are variable or where the soil profile close to water may include loose or organic material.

The different levels and small areas of piling platfom meant acess would've been too difficult for normal piling equipment to manoeuvre on but for the DHX5010 excavator mast we could reach anywhere. Each pile was driven to the specified set, with the Noakes Engineering control system logging the driving data in real time.

See the Works in Action

Watch our team and the Noakes Engineering rig at work on this project across the videos below.

Overview of the piling works at Lakeside Garden Centre

The Noakes Engineering rig in action at the lake edge

Steel cased pile driving sequence

Noakes Engineering rig at work between the lakes

Working in a Live Garden Centre

One of the defining features of this project was that the garden centre remained fully open throughout. Customers were visiting, the café was trading, and the site team had to work within those constraints every single day. The works area was fully hoarded with blue boarding, clearly signed, and access routes for both customers and our team were kept entirely separate.

This kind of working environment demands professionalism, clear communication, and a team that understands the importance of making the client's operation their priority — not just the piling. We're proud of the way the project was managed, and the garden centre team were excellent throughout.

This project is a strong example of what's possible when you combine the right specialist equipment with an experienced team that knows how to work in sensitive, restricted, and live environments. If you have a difficult piling project — whether that's restricted access, proximity to water, or working within a live commercial site — we'd love to hear from you.

Get in touch with our team to discuss your project.