Ashlar Paving Pattern – All You Need to Know

Human civilization uses natural stones for shaping establishments right from Cave Era to Skyscraper Era in unimaginative ways by creating myriads of stone products. Ashlar is one of the great stone products evident in our prolonged history.

Do You Know Everything about the Ashlar Paving Pattern?

What is Ashlar?

Ashlar is finely cut and worked stone used as the masonry unit. Most often, Ashlar is found in rectangular cuboid shapes and less frequently in trapezoidal shapes. 

We know that Rubble Masonry uses irregularly shaped stones. Still, Ashlar Masonry uses worked stone units with minimal or rough finishes or finely dressed stones. 

Ashlar in Our Civilization

• Vitruvius  also had mentioned Ashlar in  opus isodomum.
• The  tholos tombs  of the Bronze  Age Mycenae  had used ashlar stones to construct the “beehive” dome. 
• Ashlar is also used in facades on Crete, and Knossos  &  Phaistos  are the best instances. 
• Dry Ashlar was used in the construction of Cusco  and  Machu Picchu  during Incan civilization.

Types of Ashlar Stones

The dimension industry uses different terms for ashlar stones. For instance,

Perfect Ashlar

When ashlar stones have a precise cut on all faces and forming fragile joints with adjacent stone blocks, it terms as perfect Ashlar.

Rough Ashlar

When ashlar stones have rough or irregular surfaces cut on all sides, it forms big/large grouts between two units. It needs to be filled with more mortar.

Quarry Faced Ashlar

When ashlar stones have a visible face left as such cut into the quarry, and remaining sides/faces have smooth or precise cuts, the entire masonry looks natural but ends up with very thin grouts/joints. In short, quarry faced Ashlar is a combination of perfect ashlar and rough ashlar thanks to a natural cleft finish on the front face.

I hope the given terms may help you select ashlar stones and place an order for your next project.

What is an Ashlar Paving Pattern?

Natural stones are available in tiles, slabs, and blocks with precise dimensions at World of Stones USA. We can lay Ashlar paving stones in a particular pattern. I have discussed paver patterns  in a previous blog. So, I am leaving that basic behind and going to give you an outline at a glance.

However, two types of patterns are trendy in the dimension stone industry. Let’s know them.

Coursed Laying Patterns:

According to Wikipedia on Ashlar, the course is a layer of ashlar units running horizontally in a wall or parallel to the floor. It results in continuous horizontal joints/grouts. Such kinds of laying patterns fall into the coursed laying category. The following are highly used coursed laying patterns. 

Monolithic:

When pavers are installed in the same orientation, it creates neat rows and columns in your paving or walling pattern.

Brick:

When the row of stone tiles/pavers are off-set half a paver’s width, it seems like a horizontal brick-like paving pattern in rows.

Ashlar:

Ashlar laying pattern is similar to brick pattern layout, but it off-set each row by half the paver’s width. Here, each column off-sets by half a paver’s length vertically. (In brick, it is horizontal.)

Quarter-turn:

Pavers are installed in neat rows and columns, but each paver rotated 90° against the paver before it.

Other layouts in coursed patterns are:

• Herringbone
• Basketweave
• Accent tiles/pavers
• Mix & match 

Random Laying Patterns:

When Ashlar blocks are laid with discontinuous courses and creating intermittent joints in both directions, horizontal and vertical, it makes a random laying pattern. The following are some known Ashlar Random Laying Patterns available at World of Stones USA. 

Opus & Roman Opus

Grande Opus & Trianon Opus

Dutch Pattern & Set Width X Random Lengths

450/610 Random Lengths & 400/300/200 Random Lengths

560 Series-8 Sizes & 4 Sizes

600 Series-6 Sizes & 4 Sizes

Examples of Coursed Ashlar Paving Pattern

World of Stones USA is a hub of natural stones. It has a rich inventory of various Ashlar pavers to offer in standard project kits and custom project kits to meet your bespoke requirements. Let’s see some instances of coursed ashlar pavers.

Natural Stone Pavers – Sunset Buff  depicts how coursed paving in horizontal layers of ashlar stone in planks-like style looks. It is a “Set Width X Random Lengths” paving pattern in traditional ways. Natural Stone Pavers – Castle Grey  is another example of the same.

GeoCeramica Porcelain Paving – Gris Claro (Grey)  is an ideal example of a typical ashlar paving pattern. Here, lengths and widths are set.

GeoCeramica Porcelain Paving – Fiordi Sand (Beige)  & GeoCeramica Porcelain Paving – Fiordi Fumo (Grey)  are typical monolithic course patterns with square tiles.

It represents a typical random  ashlar paving pattern and is mostly used in the patio and deck paving. It has a leather texture that renders it a skid-free paver for exterior applications.

Natural Stone Pavers – Premia Collection – Sedona Rustic  may confuse you at first glance because rustic and Ashlar are opposite terms in the natural stone industry. However, Sedona Rustic gives a rustic appearance, but the kit is an ideal representative of the ashlar paving pattern.

You might have realized that World of Stones USA  is an ideal destination to get natural stones and porcelain tiles to create an ashlar paving pattern. Converse with our team and let us know about your dream project of outdoor paving with ashlar pavers. We guarantee you cost-effective products with unbeatable quality.