If you want the deep, crisp stripes of a bowling green or a cricket square on your own lawn, no rotary mower will get you there. That finish comes from a cylinder mower, and Allett has built its name making cylinder machines for people who take their lawns seriously. The brand sits at the premium end of the market, so it is not the cheapest way to cut grass, but for a fine, level lawn kept short and neat, an Allett produces a cut and a stripe that ordinary mowers cannot match. The clever part is a cartridge system that turns one machine into a whole shed of lawn tools.
Allett’s homeowner range runs from a light cordless model up to heavy petrol machines built for formal lawns and semi professional use. Picking the right one means matching the machine to the size and condition of your lawn and to how much you are willing to spend and maintain. It helps to understand how a cylinder mower actually cuts, how the range is laid out, and what the cartridge system adds before you decide whether an Allett belongs in your garden.
Why a Cylinder Cut Stripes Like Nothing Else
A rotary mower spins a single blade in a horizontal circle and cuts grass by impact, tearing the tip off at speed. A cylinder mower works completely differently. It has a set of curved blades arranged around a spinning cylinder that sweep the grass against a fixed bottom blade, shearing each leaf cleanly the way a pair of scissors cuts paper. That scissoring action leaves a finer, cleaner cut with less bruising, and because the wound is clean rather than ragged, the leaf loses less moisture and browns less at the tip. On a fine lawn cut low and often, the difference in quality of finish is obvious.
The stripe comes from the rear roller that every Allett rides on. As the mower passes, the heavy smooth roller bends the freshly cut grass flat in the direction of travel. Light reflects differently off grass leaning towards you than off grass leaning away, so alternating passes create the familiar bands of light and dark. The heavier the roller and the finer the cut, the sharper and longer lasting the stripe, which is why the weightiest cylinder mowers lay the boldest stripes of all. No rotary mower, whatever roller you bolt to it, can match the crispness a cylinder and a proper rear roller produce together.
The catch is that a cylinder mower suits a particular kind of lawn. It excels on level, fine, well kept grass cut frequently and low, and it struggles with long, rough or uneven grass that a rotary would shrug off. The blades also need occasional adjustment and sharpening to keep that scissor action keen. This is a mower for someone who wants a showpiece lawn and will look after it, not a machine for taming a wild back garden.
Which Allett Suits Your Lawn
The homeowner range spans several models, and the right one depends on your lawn size and how much power you want. For a small to medium lawn, and for anyone who prefers battery to petrol, the Liberty is the entry point. The Liberty 43 is a cordless cylinder mower for lawns up to around 500 square metres, driven by a 410 watt motor on a 40 volt lithium ion battery that gives roughly 40 minutes of cutting from a 100 minute charge. It cuts a 43cm (17 inch) width with a six bladed cylinder delivering 79 cuts per metre, and offers five cutting heights from 6 to 32mm (0.25 to 1.25 inches). Smaller Liberty 35 and Liberty 30 models suit tighter gardens. The Liberty gives you the cylinder finish and the stripe without petrol, oil or a trailing cable.
Step up to the Kensington and you reach Allett’s premium petrol machine for medium to large lawns of around 370 square metres and more. It comes in three widths, the 14K at 35.6cm (14 inches), the 17K at 43.2cm (17 inches) and the 20K at 50.8cm (20 inches), so you can match the cutting width to the size of the lawn. The Kensington is the model built around the interchangeable cartridge system, which is where a big part of its appeal lies. Expect to pay a premium price for it, in the region of several thousand pounds or dollars once fitted out, which puts it firmly in enthusiast territory.
At the top sit the Buckingham machines, heavy duty petrol mowers for the serious gardener or semi professional maintaining formal lawns, ornamental grass and larger areas. The extra weight of the chassis and a bigger engine press the strongest, longest lasting stripes of all. The Buckingham comes as the 20H with a 510mm (20 inch) cut, the 24H at 610mm (24 inches) and the 30H at 762mm (30 inches), the widest of the range for covering big formal lawns quickly. For most home gardeners this is more mower than the lawn needs, but for a large, immaculate sward it is the machine that lays the deepest stripe.
The Cartridge System That Replaces a Shed of Tools
The feature that sets the cartridge based Allett models apart is the ability to swap the cutting cylinder for other tools that clip into the same machine. Instead of buying and storing a separate scarifier, aerator and verticutter, you lift out the cylinder cartridge and drop in the tool you need. The range of cartridges covers scarifying to pull out thatch and moss, aerating to relieve compaction, verticutting to slice through lateral growth, a brush for lifting the grass before cutting, and even a ten bladed cylinder upgrade for an ultra fine finish on the shortest lawns. The cartridges cost extra, but one powered chassis then does the work of several machines and takes up a fraction of the shed space.
For a lawn enthusiast this changes the economics. The upfront cost is high, but a single Allett with a set of cartridges replaces a mower, a scarifier and an aerator, each of which would otherwise be a separate purchase sitting idle most of the year. It also means the various jobs a fine lawn needs through the season, scarifying in autumn, verticutting to keep the sward tight, regular low cutting through summer, all run off one familiar machine. For someone chasing a showpiece lawn, that versatility is a large part of what the money buys.
Whichever model you choose, plan for the upkeep a cylinder mower needs. The cylinder and bottom blade must be set correctly to shear cleanly, and they need periodic sharpening, often by a process called backlapping that hones the blades in place. Keep on top of that and the cut stays immaculate. Neglect it and the scissor action dulls into tearing, and you lose the very finish you paid for.
Is an Allett Worth It
An Allett is worth the money for a specific gardener: someone with a level, fine lawn who wants the finest possible cut and the deepest stripe, is happy to cut low and often, and will keep the blades adjusted. For that person the cylinder finish, the rear roller stripe and the cartridge versatility justify a premium price, and the machine can serve for many years. The Liberty makes the cylinder finish accessible on a smaller budget and a battery, while the Kensington and Buckingham reward larger, more formal lawns and the gardeners who tend them closely.
Look elsewhere if your lawn is rough, uneven or often left to grow long, if it sits in heavy shade, or if you simply want the grass cut with the least fuss and expense, because a good rotary or a battery rotary will serve you better and cost far less. But if the picture in your head is a lawn with dead straight, bowling green stripes and a cut so fine it looks brushed, a cylinder mower is the only route there, and Allett is one of the few brands building them for the home gardener who wants exactly that.
