Traditional lime plastering in Hereford and across Herefordshire. Working on sandstone cottages and other solid-wall property, we specify hot-mixed lime, lime putty and natural hydraulic lime to suit each individual wall rather than applying one standard mix to everything.
Many properties in and around Hereford sit within conservation areas or carry listed status, so finishes must match the original construction. We work regularly with Herefordshire conservation officers and typically specify haired lime plaster on riven lath, with lime putty finishing coats.
Hereford and the villages around it retain a good deal of soft red brick. Where that material is soft — as most traditional Herefordshire 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.
Using lime in Hereford is a conservation requirement as often as a technical one. It keeps the property eligible for heritage consent, preserves original detailing, and gives a soft, hand-finished surface no modern board can replicate.
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 damp, sheltered inland Midlands climate 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 Hereford property — the building types and problems vary, but the answer is always breathable lime rather than cement.
Victorian villa — Sagging original ceilings in a Victorian villa near the centre of Hereford. Sound laths were retained and re-keyed, missing sections re-lathed in riven timber, and the ceiling made good with haired lime plaster to match the surviving profile.
black-and-white timber-framed house — A commercial black-and-white timber-framed house on a Hereford high street within a conservation area. Decayed render and mouldings were reinstated in lime, run in situ to the original profiles, and finished to match neighbouring frontages.
red sandstone cottage — A red sandstone cottage in Hereford where hard cement render had trapped moisture against oak timber frame with wattle panels. 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.
Lime cures slowly by carbonation. Allow roughly a week per coat as a guide, and longer in the damp, sheltered inland Midlands climate. We protect the work and control drying so the finish cures evenly rather than cracking or dusting.
Yes, but it must be finished with a breathable product such as limewash, clay paint or mineral silicate paint. We advise on suitable finishes for each Hereford project so breathability is not lost at the final coat.
We do. Hereford is one of our core areas and we travel throughout Herefordshire and the surrounding parts of West Midlands for lime plastering, lime render, lime pointing and heritage repair.
We do. Lime repointing is a large part of our Hereford workload — raking out hard cement pointing and replacing it with a softer, sacrificial lime mortar that protects the masonry face instead of eroding it.
Our lime plastering, render and pointing teams also cover these towns and cities close to Hereford in Herefordshire and the wider West Midlands area.
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