Lime Plastering is a specialist lime plastering contractor working throughout Corby and the wider Northamptonshire area. As an established Northamptonshire town, Corby has a large stock of pre-1919 property built from ironstone and limestone rubble — walls that were designed to breathe. We restore them using traditional lime plaster, lime render and lime mortar, never cement or gypsum.
Whether it is limestone cottages on the edge of Corby, a terrace near the centre, or a farm building out in Northamptonshire, each project starts with a survey of the substrate so the lime mix, aggregate and coat build-up are right for that specific wall.
Corby and the villages around it retain a good deal of ironstone and limestone rubble. Where that material is soft — as most traditional Northamptonshire walling is — the mortar and plaster must always be softer than the masonry, so it wears sacrificially instead of eroding the stone or brick face.
Softness is the point. Traditional Northamptonshire walling of ironstone and limestone rubble is weaker than modern cement, so a hard mortar concentrates stress and moisture into the masonry face. Lime is deliberately the weaker material, and that is what makes it correct for Corby's older homes.
Once the survey is agreed, we protect the site, strip back the failed finish, and apply lime in successive coats with proper curing between each. In the moderate but frost-prone Midlands winters we control drying with damp hessian or sheeting so the work carbonates evenly rather than cracking.
The jobs below are typical of the work we carry out on Corby property — the building types and problems vary, but the answer is always breathable lime rather than cement.
limestone village cottage — A limestone village cottage in Corby where hard cement render had trapped moisture against ironstone and limestone rubble. We stripped the render back to bare wall, allowed the masonry to dry, then rebuilt the finish in three coats of lime and limewashed it.
mud-and-stud cottage — A mud-and-stud cottage being brought back into use outside Corby. Because banded limestone and ironstone walling needs a soft, sacrificial mortar, we plastered internally in lime over a breathable insulating background and left the external stonework repointed rather than sealed.
ironstone farmhouse — Blown gypsum plaster and tide marks on the ground floor of an ironstone farmhouse in Northamptonshire. We hacked off the gypsum, applied a haired lime base coat and a lime putty finish, and specified clay paint so the wall could keep drying.
Lime cures slowly by carbonation. Allow roughly a week per coat as a guide, and longer in the moderate but frost-prone Midlands winters. We protect the work and control drying so the finish cures evenly rather than cracking or dusting.
Yes. We take samples of the surviving mortar or plaster from the ironstone and limestone rubble first, then match aggregate, colour and texture so the repair blends into the original rather than patching over it.
We do. Corby is one of our core areas and we travel throughout Northamptonshire and the surrounding parts of East Midlands for lime plastering, lime render, lime pointing and heritage repair.
Our lime plastering, render and pointing teams also cover these towns and cities close to Corby in Northamptonshire and the wider East Midlands area.
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