Parquet & Herringbone Specialists
Herringbone, chevron and Versailles — laid one block at a time.
Modern engineered parquet blocks and full restoration of original Edwardian and 1930s parquet — the same craft, the same eye for proportion.
Free survey across Sussex, Surrey & Hampshire · Laying and restoring parquet since 1997
3
core patterns laid
29
years on the tools
5.0
★ · 215 reviews
About parquet & herringbone flooring
Parquet, block by block — by hand.
Parquet is the one floor where craft shows on every square metre. Herringbone, chevron and Versailles all live or die on the cut tolerances at the borders, around the fireplace, around the radiator pipes — and on the way the blocks read against the doorways. We lay everything by hand and treat the perimeter cuts as carefully as the field.
Around half of our parquet work is restoration rather than fresh install — lifting Edwardian and 1930s blocks, repairing the adhesive bed underneath, replacing missing or damaged pieces from reclaimed-block salvage stock, then sanding and refinishing in keeping with the period. Whether it's a new herringbone in an extension or a 90-year-old original being brought back to life, the same family team handles the lot, start to finish.
Herringbone, chevron & Versailles panels
Period parquet restoration & block matching
Hand-cut borders, mitres and feature inlays
Sample blocks brought to your survey
Solid oak blocks or engineered parquet builds
Most popular
Classic Herringbone
45° interlocking blocks — the traditional English pattern. Visually busy enough to fill a room without competing with the furniture. Stunning in halls, dining rooms and kitchens; reads beautifully from any angle as the daylight moves.
Chevron
Angled point-to-point pattern — cleaner, more contemporary, more cutting (so a bit more material and labour). Best in long corridors, modern open-plan rooms and reception halls where the V-points draw the eye through the space.
Statement
Versailles Panels
Large pre-assembled parquet panels with an intricate interior pattern. Period statement floor — typically reserved for grand reception rooms and entrance halls where you want the floor itself to be the architectural feature.
Restoration
Period Parquet Restoration
Lifting, repairing, re-laying and refinishing original Edwardian or 1930s blocks. Where blocks are missing or beyond saving, we source matching original stock from architectural salvage. Almost always cheaper than a new floor, and you keep the character.
Borders, mitres & feature inlays
Single, double or contrasting-species borders. Brass strip inlays at the room threshold. Mitred corners against the skirting line. Where the floor needs to look intentional rather than just busy, the border is what does the work.
Why solid parquet is worth it
Real solid parquet, or parquet-effect laminate?
Parquet — laid block-by-block in herringbone or chevron — is the most-imitated wood floor on the market. Plank-format laminate and LVT both come in a 'parquet pattern' for half the price. Once they're down, they're easy to tell apart. Here's why.
Solid oak parquet blocks, hand-laid
Recommended-
Hand-laid block by block, mitred at the borders
Each 70×230mm or 90×280mm oak block set individually against the layout grid, with the border mitres cut on site. Same craft technique as the 1920s town-hall floors that are still down 100 years later.
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Sandable for a 60–80 year service life
Solid parquet blocks can be sanded back 6–8 times. Single fitting, three or four generations of use. The block layout never goes out of fashion.
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Period-correct for restoration
Original Edwardian and inter-war parquet is solid oak; if you're patching or restoring an original floor, only solid blocks will sit alongside it convincingly. Anything else looks instantly modern.
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Lays over screed or ply on joists
Bedded in modern bitumen-free adhesive — no membrane shortcuts, no floating click-tray. The floor feels solid underfoot because it is.
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Custom borders and inlays possible
Contrasting-species borders, brass thresholds, mitred corners, feature panels. Anything you can draw, we can cut and lay. Not possible with pre-printed plank product.
Parquet-effect laminate or LVT plank
What you give up-
Two blocks per plank, repeated
The 'herringbone' is printed onto long planks — two-block pattern repeated identically across the whole floor. The repeat is obvious within a fortnight.
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12-year floor at best
Photo-print wear layer scratches through to MDF/HDF core and the whole room comes up. No refinish path.
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Looks instantly modern in a period home
Anything paired with original Victorian or Edwardian skirting reads as a 2020s renovation rather than a restoration. Devalues the house's character.
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Hollow underfoot
Floating click systems sit on foam underlay. The crisp footfall a genuine parquet floor gives you is replaced with a thin acoustic ring.
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No border work possible
Pre-printed planks can't be mitred, bordered, inlaid or feature-panelled. The layout is whatever the pack lets you do. End of options.
Recent Midhurst quote: 28m² of new solid oak parquet, hand-laid in herringbone with a contrasting walnut border, sanded and oiled — £138/m². The 'herringbone-effect' LVT alternative the client had been quoted was £52/m² but rated as a 12-year floor. The solid parquet will still be down — and look better — when their grandchildren inherit the house.
How we lay parquet
From free survey to finished floor.
Parquet rewards patience at the layout stage — get the centre lines and the borders right and the rest follows.
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Free home survey
Darren visits, measures, checks the subfloor and walks you through pattern, block size, border options and finish. Sample blocks left with you. 30–40 minutes, no pressure, written quote within 72 hours.
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Subfloor preparation
Parquet is unforgiving of an uneven subfloor. We level screed where needed, lay ply over timber joists where they're not flat enough, and dry the slab if moisture readings are high. Most parquet failures we get called to are subfloor failures.
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Setting out & laying
We chalk-line the room centres, dry-lay the first run from the centre out, then bond down by hand — block by block, mitre by mitre. Border cuts are taken last, fitted to the actual room rather than a drawing. Period restorations follow the same setting out as the originals.
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Sanding & finish
Three-pass sanding (coarse, medium, fine) with dust extraction. Hand-applied hardwax oil, traditional wax, or lacquer depending on the room — period work usually gets oil or wax for the right reading. Buffed between coats.
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Walkthrough & care card
Final walkthrough with a written care card showing the exact products used, the finish maintenance schedule, and what to do if a block ever lifts or marks.
Recent parquet & herringbone flooring work
A few of our parquet & herringbone flooring projects.
Real homes where this work has just gone in — across Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire.
Chichester, PO19
Pale natural oak herringbone
Pale natural oak set as a clean herringbone, the light blocks catching the sun across a freshly laid floor with knots and gentle grain on show. The kind of bright, fresh parquet we’d lay in a Chichester home and finish in a clear low-sheen oil.
Arundel, BN18
Limed oak herringbone parquet
Limed oak in a pale greige tone, laid as a wide herringbone sweeping past a stone fireplace and finished in a soft matt that keeps the cool, chalky colour even. The kind of light, modern parquet we’d lay in an Arundel home.
Midhurst, GU29
Greige oak herringbone hallway
Greige grey-brown oak laid as a herringbone through a hall, meeting wide plank boards in the next room and running to a staircase still being worked on. The kind of warm-grey parquet and matched stair detail we’d fit in a Midhurst home.
Haslemere, GU27
Pale oak herringbone, freshly laid
Pale natural-oak herringbone laid right through a large open-plan room while the build was still going on around it — light, even boards in a tight herringbone run, set out across the whole floor ready for its first finish. The kind of parquet install we’d take on in Haslemere.
Room by room
Parquet flooring for every room in the house.
Where you’re laying it changes what we recommend. Here’s how we approach parquet flooring in each room of a home.
Parquet flooring for kitchens
The busiest floor in the house — spills, dropped pans and constant footfall. We spec hard-wearing boards and a tough, wipeable finish that shrugs off splashes around the sink and hob.
Parquet flooring for bathrooms
Moisture is the enemy here, so we lean toward engineered constructions and water-resistant finishes — warm wood underfoot without the swelling and cupping that catches solid boards out.
Parquet flooring for hallways
First impression and highest traffic in one. Durable, scuff-resistant boards run wall-to-wall to draw the eye through the house and take the daily pounding of muddy boots and the front door.
Parquet flooring for living rooms
The room you actually live in. Wider, character-grade boards make the space feel calm and considered, with a satin finish that's warm to walk on of an evening.
Parquet flooring for bedrooms
Quiet, warm and easy on bare feet first thing. We fit over acoustic underlay upstairs and finish with a low-sheen oil that keeps the room restful.
Parquet flooring for stairs
The hardest-working timber in the house and the trickiest to fit. Bullnosed treads, matched risers and a non-slip finish, scribed to the existing strings for a seamless run.
Parquet & Herringbone Flooring across the region
Parquet & Herringbone Flooring from Chichester to Arundel.
Parquet & Herringbone Flooring is the bread and butter of the workshop. You’ll see our van rolling out of Bognor Regis most weeks toward Chichester, Haslemere, Petersfield, Midhurst and Arundel — the postcodes across Sussex, Surrey & Hampshire where parquet & herringbone flooring keeps the diary full. Geometric block laying — herringbone, chevron, Versailles panels. Modern installs and period parquet restoration.
Whether the brief is a Georgian terrace in Chichester, a 1930s semi out near Haslemere, or a converted barn off the lanes around Arundel, the spec and the standard don’t shift. 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 — no day-trip back-and-forth, no chain of phone numbers, flat-rate quotes by the job not the mile. Family team since 1997, covering Sussex, Surrey & Hampshire from the same coastal base.
“After some home refurbishments, we needed new flooring in the lounge and hallway. Originally we'd just thought of rustic style straight floor boards… with that in mind….Darren came round with his wealth of experience and samples and suggested herringbone! We used the website provided to take a look at visuals of what it "could" look like in the space we were flooring….. and didn't look back! His team arrived to install…. They were well mannered, professional, tidy and helped guide me through decisions that I hadn't even factored in! Their patience was amazing! The final product…… we love it! Couldn't recommend Forrestal Flooring enough!”
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Frequently asked
Questions about parquet & herringbone flooring.
Can you restore my original 1930s parquet?
Yes — a big share of our parquet work is restoration rather than new install. We lift damaged blocks, repair the adhesive bed underneath, replace from salvage stock where pieces are missing or beyond saving, then sand and refinish in period-appropriate oil or wax. Almost always cheaper than a new floor and you keep all the character.
Herringbone or chevron — which suits my room?
Herringbone is the busier, more traditional pattern — fills a room comfortably and reads well from any angle. Chevron is cleaner and more directional, so it works best where you want to lead the eye through a space (long halls, open-plan rooms). Chevron is slightly more expensive because every block needs the cut at 45° to make the point. We bring sample blocks of both to survey.
Solid parquet blocks or engineered parquet — which do you install?
Both. Solid oak blocks are the traditional choice and what we'll specify on period restorations or where you want the floor to be sandable indefinitely. Engineered parquet (real-oak top layer on a stable core) is the right answer over underfloor heating, concrete subfloors and large open-plan rooms where solid wood would move. Darren will walk you through both at survey.
Can you match new blocks to my existing original floor?
Usually yes. We source from architectural salvage yards across the south coast and have built up matching stock of Edwardian and 1930s oak parquet over the years. Where exact matches aren't possible, we can usually blend new blocks toned with oil or stain to read seamlessly against the surrounding original work. Larger country-house libraries and entrance halls where the parquet repair sits inside a wider multi-room programme are covered on the country estate and manor house flooring page — the parquet craft is the same, the rhythm of the programme around residence is what's different.
How long does a typical parquet install take?
Longer than plank flooring — there's much more cutting, and the borders are hand-fitted. A single-room herringbone is typically 6–10 working days including subfloor prep, lay, sand and finish. Chevron and Versailles take a touch longer because of the extra cuts. Restorations vary hugely with condition — we'll give you a written schedule before any work starts.
Can you lay parquet over my underfloor heating?
Yes — but with engineered parquet rather than solid blocks. Solid oak parquet cups and gaps too readily with temperature cycling. Engineered parquet (real-oak top layer on a cross-ply core) handles UFH fine — same look, same finish, far better dimensional stability. We'll specify a max surface temperature (typically 27°C) and a commissioning ramp-up in your care card.
Ready to start?
Talk to Darren direct
07973 658149
Mon–Fri, 8am–6pm
Get a free survey for your parquet & herringbone flooring.
Darren will visit, measure up and walk you through species, finishes and lead times. No pressure, no hard sell — just specialist advice.
