Honestly, I get asked this a lot, and the short answer is: absolutely yes. You can buy just the legs for an urban bench and add your own wooden seat slats. It’s one of the most satisfying DIY upgrades you can do, especially if you’ve come across a battered old bench frame at a salvage yard or you just want that heavy-duty cast iron look with your choice of timber.
The tricky part isn’t finding the legs — it’s knowing what to search for and how to make sure everything fits together without wobbling. Let me walk you through it exactly like I would with a friend standing in the hardware aisle.
First, what are these legs actually called? If you’re typing “urban bench legs” into Google, you’re on the right track, but you’ll get better results using terms like cast iron bench legs, replacement bench ends, freestanding bench supports, or park bench leg sets. The classic urban bench style usually refers to those heavy, ornate cast iron ends or simple, robust steel frames you see in public parks, and lots of manufacturers sell the raw castings separately for restoration projects.
There are three main ways to source them:
1. Specialist foundries and ironworks — companies that produce traditional street furniture often have an online shop where you can order a pair of legs without wood. Look for keywords like “unfinished cast bench ends” or “bench leg castings.” These often come with pre-drilled counterbores for barrel nuts, which makes mounting your slats incredibly clean.
2. Salvage and architectural antique yards — if you want genuine aged iron with patina, this is gold. You might need to clean them up and repaint, but the quality is often superb. Just measure the centre-to-centre distance of the outer bolt holes before you fall in love, because some historic patterns aren’t standardised.
3. DIY and large-format online retailers — you’d be surprised, but some bench legs are sold as “replacement parts” for popular garden bench models. You can find simple black powder-coated steel A-frame legs for very little money, and they are perfect if you want a minimalist modern look.
Once you have your legs, the real fun begins: choosing your own seat slats and putting it all together. The standard urban bench typically uses four wooden slats across the width, usually about 1.5m to 1.8m long (though you can cut to fit your space). Hardwoods like iroko, teak, or oak are ideal because they stand up to weather and public use, but if you’re on a budget, pressure-treated pine with a good exterior stain works beautifully.
The critical measurement is the spacing between the outer mounting holes on your leg brackets. If you’re building from scratch, here’s a bulletproof process:
- Lay the two leg frames down flat facing each other and measure the spread of the holes.
- Mark exactly where those holes hit each end of your timber slats.
- Use a Forstner bit to create recessed pockets for the bolt heads if your legs use a through-bolt system, or drill clean pilot holes if they have threaded inserts.
- For urban-style benches, the most common fixing is the hidden barrel nut (also called a cross dowel). This gives a totally clean face with no exposed bolt heads on the sitting surface — a detail that makes your DIY bench look professionally made.
- Space the slats evenly with about an 8–10mm gap for water drainage and air circulation. This stops the wood cupping prematurely.
One thing I always warn people about: if you’re mixing vintage cast iron legs with fresh oak slats, the screws or bolts you use must be stainless steel. The tannin in oak corrodes ordinary zinc-plated steel faster than you’d believe, and within a season you’ll get ugly black staining and loose joints.
Also check the leg height from the ground to the bottom of the wooden seat. Standard urban benches usually have a seat height around 430–460mm, which feels comfortable for most adults. If your legs are designed for a thicker timber profile and you’re using thinner slats, you might end up sitting slightly lower — an easy fix with discreet rubber pads or adjustable feet under the legs.
So absolutely, buy the legs, skip the pre-packaged timber, and make the bench your own. It’s cheaper than buying a complete high-end bench, you can customize the colours and wood species to match your garden or streetscape, and honestly, the satisfaction of sitting on a public-style heavy bench that you fitted yourself is kind of addictive. Just triple-check those bolt hole centres before you drill, and you’ll end up with something that outlasts the mass-produced ones by decades.