Wood block flooring is exactly what it sounds like: individual blocks of solid hardwood, laid tight in a geometric pattern. It is the original name for parquet and block flooring – the floor of school halls, town halls and grand houses – and it endures because a solid block is one of the toughest, most repairable floors you can specify.

Why it lasts

The strength is in the construction. A solid hardwood block presents a thick wear surface that can be sanded and refinished many times across a building’s life, so a wood block floor is often still in service – and still beautiful – decades after it was laid. Laid in chevron, herringbone, basketweave or brick-bond patterns, it also brings a depth and craft that plank floors cannot.

The modern commercial expression

• Industrial parquet – blocks laid on their edge for an exceptionally deep wear layer, engineered for the heaviest commercial and retail floors.
• End-grain oak – blocks laid end-up so footfall meets the toughest face of the timber; historically a factory and workshop floor, now a design statement.
• Wide-plank engineered oak – where the same oak is wanted in a broad, contemporary board rather than a block.

Where wood block is specified

Its combination of toughness and character suits retail and showrooms, workplaces and offices, hospitality, and heritage and civic interiors where a floor has to look considered and last generations. All of it is available in FSC-certified oak, with the specifier evidence – fire, slip, moisture and EPDs – in our downloads library.