Retaining Walls in Highfields

About Highfields

Highfields is a different kind of ground again, up on the range-top plateau north of Toowoomba. Here the subsoil is granite and sandstone rather than black clay, and on these fast-growing rural-residential blocks the usual job is cutting in a level pad and holding the bank that creates.

Highfields is a fast-growing range-top community north of Toowoomba, sitting high on the plateau at around 600 to 700 metres. It is centred on the Highfields Village Shopping Centre, the heritage displays at Highfields Pioneer Village and the local Highfields State School, and has seen strong rural-residential growth. The housing is dominated by newer homes on larger, undulating rural-residential blocks, many of them recently built. The subsoils here are granite and sandstone rather than the deep reactive clay of the city below, so the retaining story in Highfields is mostly about cutting level building pads into undulating, often rocky ground.

What shapes a retaining wall in Highfields

Highfields stands apart from the rest of the region because of its geology and its growth. Sitting on the granite and sandstone plateau north of the range, the ground is firmer and far less reactive than the black soil that dominates Toowoomba proper, but it is undulating, so building a modern home on a rural-residential block almost always means cutting a level pad into a rise and retaining the cut behind it. The local pattern, then, is cut-in retaining: walls that hold the excavated bank above a new house, garage or driveway, often on blocks where the dig has run into rock. That rock can give footings a solid bearing, but it also makes excavation slower and the retaining design specific to the cut. Because so much of Highfields is new building work, a lot of the retaining is part of fresh construction rather than repair of failed older walls.

Concrete sleeper retaining walls and materials in Highfields

On Highfields' range-top blocks, concrete sleeper and core-filled block walls do most of the cut-in retaining that levels building pads, founded to take advantage of the firm granite and sandstone where the excavation reaches it. Natural rock and sandstone walls suit the rural-residential setting and the local stone for garden and entry terraces. With far less reactive clay to contend with than the city below, the footing emphasis shifts toward the cut face and the bank above it, while drainage still goes in behind every wall with gravel and ag-drain so run-off across the undulating plateau is carried away rather than building behind the cut.

Streets and pockets we cover across Highfields

Enquiries we route in Highfields tend to follow the growth corridors such as Highfields Road, Plaza Circle and Highgrove Drive, where new homes on undulating rural-residential blocks need cut-in retaining to create level pads for the house, garage and driveway. Hitting granite or sandstone in the dig is common here, and the retaining is designed around the cut it creates.