Lime Plastering is a specialist lime plastering contractor working throughout Leamington Spa and the wider Warwickshire area. As an established Warwickshire town, Leamington Spa has a large stock of pre-1919 property built from red sandstone — walls that were designed to breathe. We restore them using traditional lime plaster, lime render and lime mortar, never cement or gypsum.
Many properties in and around Leamington Spa sit within conservation areas or carry listed status, so finishes must match the original construction. We work regularly with Warwickshire conservation officers and typically specify haired lime plaster on riven lath, with lime putty finishing coats.
Leamington Spa and the villages around it retain a good deal of red sandstone. Where that material is soft — as most traditional Warwickshire 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.
In the damp, sheltered inland Midlands climate, an impermeable render is a liability: water gets in at cracks and reveals and then cannot leave. Lime render on a Leamington Spa wall handles that water, releasing it back out through the surface instead of pushing it deeper into the structure.
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 Leamington Spa property — the building types and problems vary, but the answer is always breathable lime rather than cement.
red sandstone cottage — A red sandstone cottage in Leamington Spa 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.
Victorian villa — Blown gypsum plaster and tide marks on the ground floor of a Victorian villa in Warwickshire. 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.
black-and-white timber-framed house — Sagging original ceilings in a black-and-white timber-framed house near the centre of Leamington Spa. 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.
We do. Leamington Spa is one of our core areas and we travel throughout Warwickshire and the surrounding parts of West Midlands for lime plastering, lime render, lime pointing and heritage repair.
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 Leamington Spa project so breathability is not lost at the final coat.
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.
It depends on the wall and its exposure. For most Warwickshire work we use haired lime plaster on riven lath, with lime putty finishing coats, stepping up to a more hydraulic lime only where exposure or the substrate genuinely demands it.
Yes. We take samples of the surviving mortar or plaster from the oak timber frame with wattle panels first, then match aggregate, colour and texture so the repair blends into the original rather than patching over it.
Our lime plastering, render and pointing teams also cover these towns and cities close to Leamington Spa in Warwickshire and the wider West Midlands area.
Browse all areas we cover across the UK
Get a lime plastering quote in Leamington Spa