Experienced Renovation Specialists
We strive to achieve results that fit as well into our landscape as those of past Masters of their craft. Each project is unique to us, bringing its own challenges and rewards, with the overall aims of bringing to life a building that will be celebrated by its current custodians and those to come.
The need to conserve our architectural heritage and protect it for future generations is vital, as is the need to tell the next chapter in the ‘story’ of the building, sometimes by adding a contemporary element, so long as it has been thought through with care and experience! We have been providing restoration and renovation services to architects and private clients for 35 years and will happily engage with your local conservation officer or your Historic Building architect to ensure the best for your property.
The urge to ‘restore’ is a common request from clients and it may be that restoration of a given element is both desirable and practicable, however, it can also be as important to simply ‘conserve’ what exists, that is to ensure that the feature is retained for the future as it is, using minimal intervention to the fabric. In these cases the need to distinguish between the original and the ‘honest repair’ is so important- we are always learning from the features, materials and approaches of the past and if we ruthlessly ‘restore’ we can at the same time blur the distinctions between the modern and the original- it’s lost to us then.
We feel that in many, but not all cases, it is best when adding to a building of period, to celebrate the addition as being at one with the property, but clearly a later feature.
We offer our clients a deep source of experience and knowledge and a unique approach to design.
The versatility of skills that we offer transfers to sound knowledge and ensures new buildings function properly as the crafts and trades we use form an alliance with one another to produce beautiful and efficient new structures— built to last.
We see it as our duty to do all we can to preserve these special buildings and, as we take pleasure in, and learn from them, we must ensure we do not harm their special qualities.
Period Masonry & Repairs
Bricks, stone and mortar are materials that have been with us for many centuries, in different forms as part of the buildings we create to live and work in.
Always subject to the demands of economics, fashion and availability as well as of course, geology, masonry comes in many forms and amounts.
Our masons of the past, creative and resourceful, were able to get the most from stone, flint or brick for as little cost as they could manage.
This results in regional variation in approach along with variety of size, colour and texture as a trip through any county will tell you.
We think it is important to resist the ever growing homogenisation of modern materials, where we can and retain the local character of brick, flint and stone- these are the elements that provide the character we all enjoy.
To that end, we always try our very best to source materials locally- Bricks ,for example, were often made from local clays, fired within the Parish- the result being that they have unique colour, texture size and absorbency.
Like wise the mortars used- locally made, with the local builders adding their own ingredients, means that lime mortars add character too and we again try to get close to it by analysing the make up of it and then blending something close to it if we can.
With regard to brick repair, we will try wherever we can, not to remove/disturb too much- if a brick is clearly beyond hope then we will replace, but we can, with our specialist equipment also cut the brick out whole, turn it around and re-bed it in the same hole, but with the previously protected face now exposed.
It relies upon sensitivity, the experience of a craftsman/woman and patience, but the results are worth it.
