Late Victorian cottage, gable and front elevation repointing with hot-mixed lime mortar

This lovely cottage is a fantastic example of an ironstone building that is so typical of the region we work in. The Marlestone bedrock encompasses much of of the local area and has a rich colour ranging from cream to a dark chocolate brown with all manner of shades in between. This cottage required some rebuilding of the gable apex which was sadly had been poorly worked upon previously with deteriorated stonework rendered over with a thick cement mortar that exacerbated the decay process.

The removal of the cement render revealed some brick replacements which were swapped out with ironstone. The front elevation was repointed a month or so later. Heavily decayed stonework was replaced. In cases where the stone had lost its face but was otherwise healthy a stone repair was carried out using hot-mixed lime mortar. We have been developing a technique of colouring the stone using crushed stone dust, natural pigments and slaked lime to replicate the stone and even create the visual effect of the lichen to blend in with the surrounding stonework. The image below is an example of a stone repair.

We really enjoyed working with ironstone and have used our own bespoke hot-mixed lime mortar, carefully mixed to give the mortar a soft cream colour. This colour will continue to settle down over the coming years as it carbonates.