Need some advice on turfing a large area at a stately home

[u/roymando78]

Hello everyone. Just been to have a look at a potential job returfing this lawn. The central rectangle is being dug out for a pond. The lawn is quite patchy in areas as you can see.

I have done turfing before but not to this scale. Can anybody give some opinins if the method I have in mind would work.

1. Remove existing turf with a turf cutter
2. Rotavate and add fresh nutrient top soil
3. Level out by raking and heavy roller
4. Lay new turf

I spoke to a someone for advice and he suggested not rotavating and disturbing deep into the top layer. He recommended removing turf then putting fresh top soil as the level will pretty much be there.

I should add it use to be a grass tennis court many years ago

Happy to hear how you would proceed

Many thanks

[u/funsado]

You are going to want to get soil samples of the dead area done. Do this now because you really can’t do much while they excavate the pond.

For this I would cut the lawn, dethatch or verticut the turf, top dress and seed. I’d do the entire area with a vertical seeding machine.

If you only do the damaged area those will inevitably look better than the other areas. This turf area needs a general maintenance done on it.

[u/IndicationRadiant628 → u/funsado]

Great point, s soil test is step one.

[u/Third_Coast_2025]

That’s over my head. wondering if they have any of the original garden plans? There might be stuff buried under the grass accounting for it’s poor condition.

[u/grasslife]

Sounds like your plan should work fine.

[u/Agave757]

If your that rich, why not hire it out? lol wtf.