From Saxon flint cottages around Holy Trinity Church to sailing-quarter homes above Shore Road — bespoke hardwood, sympathetic restoration and skilled parquet by a family team who understand coastal stock.
25 minutes from our Bognor Regis workshop · Covering PO18
Bosham — pronounced "Bozzum" by anyone who's lived here a winter — is twenty-five minutes from our Bognor Regis workshop, and it's one of the villages we know best inside the harbour. Most of our restoration work here lands inside the older stock around Holy Trinity Church: original boards lifted, gap-filled traditionally and finished with hardwax oils that handle the humidity swings the inlet brings in twice a day.
Out toward Bosham Hoe and the houses set back from Shore Road, the work shifts toward installation: engineered oak in kitchen extensions, wide-plank rooms in the larger sailing-quarter homes, and the occasional parquet revival in a 1930s villa. Different houses, same standard — and the same coastal-savvy approach to subfloor moisture every time.
Bosham sits on a tidal inlet of Chichester Harbour — Shore Road floods on the spring tides twice a day, and salt humidity swings hard between summer and winter. That's brutal on board flooring if it isn't handled properly.
We lean toward engineered cores in anything within a quarter-mile of the water — they take humidity in their stride and don't need acclimatising — run a moisture-meter pass over every subfloor before quoting, and where we do lay solid wood we acclimatise the boards on-site first.
For period stock around the church and quay we always survey the void below the boards: ventilation, joist condition, moisture readings. Hardwax oils get the nod over lacquers here too — easier to spot-repair when a stray sailing boot scuffs the hall.
We lay and restore oak floors around Bosham and the Quay — the kind of work we'd specify for a cottage or sailing house by the water. A look at what we'd bring to your home.
A tired engineered oak floor at Bosham Hoe, worn down by years of heavy use, sanded back and re-finished to a warm honey tone — the long boards running out toward the garden doors under a soft, low-sheen oil that lifts the grain again.
A panelled reception room at Bosham Hoe, its engineered oak floor refreshed to a paler, limed tone that sits softly beneath the sage wainscoting and picks up the light beneath the chandelier.
Restoration underway at Bosham Hoe: you can see the line where the tired boards have been sanded back to bare oak on the left and the finished, re-oiled surface picking its warmth back up on the right — the same floor, part-way through its transformation.
A closer look at the Bosham Hoe oak part-way through refinishing — the boards’ natural grain and the odd characterful mark lifting back up beside the painted island, ready for their final coats.
Waterside homes around Holy Trinity and Bosham Hoe move with the tides and the damp — we fit and restore floors that can take it, across Bosham and PO18, just as we have since 1997.
Sanding, gap-filling, hand-finishing — tired boards brought back without losing the character.
Read more
Solid oak, walnut, ash and maple boards — character grades and feature widths.
Read more
Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian houses — pitch pine, baltic deal, oak, sympathetic finishes.
Read more
Grade I, II* and II floors — sympathetic species, reversible methods advised where a listing demands.
Read more
Real-wood top layers on stable cores — engineered for UFH and open-plan rooms.
Read more
Herringbone, chevron and Versailles panels — modern installs and period restoration.
Read more
Foyers, offices, retail and hospitality — traditional methods, delivered on schedule.
Read more
Overnight and weekend phasing — slip-rated matt finishes and food-safe sealers.
Read more
Reclaimed boards and beer-tolerant finishes for country pubs, coaching inns and gastropubs.
Read more
Multi-room timber phased around occupancy — batch-matched corridor-to-bedroom, acoustic underlay.
Read more
Country estate programmes phased around residence — restoration and new install under one spec.
Read more
Engineered oak properly specced for wet and electric UFH — written commissioning log on handover.
Read more
French oak, English elm, antique pitch pine — sourced with provenance, laid with respect to age.
Read more
European white oak in 180mm–300mm+ planks, random lengths to 2.5m, hand-finished on site.
Read more
Barn weddings, country-house venues and marquee dance floors — Bona commercial-wear lacquer, seasonal install windows.
Read moreOur work in Bosham is anchored by the PO18 postcode — Saxon-era flint cottages around Holy Trinity Church all sit squarely inside it. Around 25 minutes up from the Bognor Regis workshop — same craftsman every visit, flat-rate quotes by the job not the mile.
Across PO18 the Bosham brief stays the same: Darren surveys on-site, sample boards stay with you for a fortnight under your own lighting, and the install runs in a single solid stretch rather than back-and-forth day trips. It matters in places like Sailing-quarter properties above Shore Road and around Bosham Hoe where the subfloors and the building fabric earn a slower pass. Family team since 1997, working across West Sussex from the same coastal base. Around 2.9k residents in the town centre, and we’ve quoted on hundreds of the homes within walking distance of it.
“Our dining room parquet flooring had unfortunately been scuffed and scratched by builders when installing a home lift. We were recommended to contact Forrestal Flooring for a quote to refurbish the flooring. We are delighted with the outcome. Darren with his expertise, skill and knowledge provided a solution which avoided the need for re-sanding though with equally impressive results. We cannot recommend him highly enough.”
Read this on Google
Every wood flooring pattern, character finish and construction Darren installs — solid hardwood, engineered oak, herringbone and parquet — laid out edge-to-edge so you can see real grain, real colour, real texture.
Darren will visit, measure up and walk you through species, finishes and lead times. No pressure, no hard sell — just specialist advice.
Forrestal Flooring is the trusted flooring partner to award-winning interior design studio LEIVARS. The accolades below were won by LEIVARS for their interior schemes — we're proud to have supplied and fitted the floors behind many of them.
