Retain a small soil bank

We have dug down 6-12" in an area of our garden to get a flat surface to be paved. Building a retaining wall is going to be a faff and the soil is pretty solid but long-term I would like to keep it it retained.

I've seen landscaping projects use wire mesh type products here, I think often combined with grass to tie it all together. So I wondered about doing this sort of thing here but looking online pro products are very expensive.

I wondered for such a small area if I could DIY it with fencing or even fine chicken wire - lay it out over the area to hold the soil in place until it naturally binds back together? The main concern right now is that if you tread on the 'edge' it knocks soil onto the paved area so I'm thinking physically holding the soil in place with a fine mesh would help.

 

Turf would probably hold it. But at an angle.
Also, a change of height below a boundary near me has paving slabs as a retainer. They've been there 20 years so it works

 

Looks relatively straightforward to me:
I've got an allotment where I can't use cement in the foundations so I use the water tanks filled with soil that I grow carrots in (got a few of them lying around) as earth retainers, as the plot is on a slight gradient and very high at the back compared to the bottom.
Alternatively, what about building a planter up against it or dropping down a few sleepers. Turf would work well as well, as tiger says

 

A little wall isn't hard but would be a faff in our case and it doesn't need to be decorative which is why I am thinking something functional and ugly and cheap.

 

How about phoning around a few tree surgeons or asking neighbours if they've got any wood logs they don't want, either run length wise or stacked as stumps? If you're lucky you might get some mushrooms grow out of it..

 

I do have some leylandii trunks a few inches diameter which I was wondering what to do with after being felled last year. How many years do you think they'd last up against damp soil? I could get some metal rods to hammer in like I was doing a retaining wall from sleepers - might be a good option.

 

Yes, sounds good mate.
A few inches? at least a couple of years. I've got stumps from a tree felled 15 years ago (about a foot thick) that are only just starting to fall apart a bit and that's from sitting out exposed to the elements year after year.
Inexpensive and environmentally sound option.