Bricklaying in Ashmore
Lime repointing, brick and flint repair, chimney work, boundary walls and new brickwork in Ashmore and SP5. Free site visit, free written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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On an old wall in Ashmore the mortar is meant to be the part that wears out. It should be softer than the brick or the flint around it, so the weather takes the joint and not the face. If somebody has repointed in cement and the brick faces are now flaking, that is the mortar doing damage, not the wall failing, and it can be put right.
Most of the brickwork in Ashmore is old. The village has its own conservation area and twenty six entries on the national list, so a good deal of the building stock is a cottage, a barn, an outbuilding or a wall along a lane rather than anything modern. The usual faults are open joints letting weather into a solid wall, brick faces flaking off after an earlier repointing job, a chimney with the mortar gone, or a boundary wall that has started to lean out over the verge.
None of that is emergency work, and none of it is quick work either. The survey is where the job is decided: what the original mortar actually is, how deep the joints are sound, whether the wall is drying through the mortar or through the face, and whether consent is going to be needed before a trowel comes out. The site visit is free, the written quote is free and itemised, and we would rather tell you a wall wants leaving alone than take money for making it worse.
The work
What we do to brickwork in Ashmore
Solid walls and soft lime joints. An old wall in Ashmore has no cavity. It keeps the weather out by being thick and it dries out through its own surface, so the pointing has to stay breathable.
Joints are raked by hand, never with a disc cutter, to about twice their depth and back to mortar that is genuinely sound, then put back in a lime mix, usually an NHL with a well graded sharp sand matched to what was there for colour and texture. The finish is normally flush or slightly recessed on an irregular brick, not weather struck. The work is damped down, covered and left to carry for days rather than hours, and that protection and that waiting time are real work that belongs on the quote.
Flint, brick, and the walls of the lanes. Where a wall is flint with brick dressings, or flint with brick lacing courses, the repair is a different trade again. Raking too deep on flint takes the bedding out from under the stones and loosens more than it fixes, so the depth is judged face by face. Loose flints are re-bedded, galleting goes back where it was, and the brick quoins, arches and cills that frame the panels are cut out only where the face has genuinely gone. A flint boundary wall that has lost its coping is worth capping again quickly, because the water goes straight down through the core and then the frost does the rest. The lanes in Ashmore are lined with walls that have been clipped, rooted and rained on for a long time. Bowed lengths come down and are rebuilt off a sound footing in the original material, and gate piers go back plumb.
The commonest damage on old walls in this village was done with good intentions. A hard sand and cement mortar over a soft handmade brick stops the joint breathing, so water leaves through the brick instead, and the first sharp frost lifts the face off in flakes. The cement has to come out and the worst bricks cut out and either turned or replaced, and we source reclaimed brick of the right size and colour rather than settle for a modern one that will never match. Stacks on the old cottages take weather from every side and carry the oldest mortar on the building, so they are repointed, the flaunching renewed and the courses above roof level rebuilt where they have gone soft. The ground here shrinks and swells, which makes where rainwater ends up beside a foundation a structural question and not only a damp one.
How it runs
Brick and flint repairs in Ashmore, from visit to finish
Brickwork here can be anything from a flint and brick boundary wall along a lane to a chimney on an old cottage or a barn in a yard, and older walls were usually built in lime.
Thomas looks at it himself, scratches the joints and checks whether the wall is moving, and writes the quote, which separates access, raking out, the lime mix, each elevation, replacement bricks and disposal.
Materials come in on the smallest vehicle the lane will take. Lime is mixed on boards and the work is covered from rain and frost while it cures. Rubble and spoil are cleared daily and leave with us. If a wall turns out to have no footing, or a timber lintel has failed, we photograph it, put a price to it, and wait until you agree.
Repair like for like is maintenance and needs no planning permission. Where a conservation area applies, and it is worth checking with the council whether one covers your street, a change of appearance or taking down a boundary wall can need consent. Work on a listed building needs listed building consent even for repointing, because the mortar is part of its character. Building control comes in for a new lintel or underpinning, and a shared wall brings in the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Cost
What decides the price of brick and flint work here
We do not quote brickwork by the square metre. Until the joints have been looked at, the area means very little.
Lime, not cement. An old wall built in lime has to be repaired in lime. It is slower to lay, it needs protecting from frost while it cures, and it cannot be rushed, which shows in the hours.
Flint. Flint work is slow. Each flint is set by hand to match the old coursing, so a collapsed length of flint boundary wall takes far longer to rebuild than the same length in brick.
The ground. Clay that shrinks and swells can move a wall with a shallow footing. If a wall has cracked, we look at the footing and at where the rainwater goes before quoting a rebuild.
Access. A barn or outbuilding in an open yard is easy to reach, while a wall along a lane means traffic and little room. A cottage chimney or a gable goes up on scaffold, set out under the work at height rules, and that is its own line on the quote. Raking by hand, joint depth and spalled faces decide the rest.
Ask any competing quote how deep the joints are raked, by hand or disc, what lime mix goes back in, and whether the scaffold is included.
If something has moved
A wall that has moved or a stack losing mortar
If a boundary wall is leaning into the lane, or its coping has gone and flints are dropping out, keep people and cars clear and let us know. The same goes for a chimney with open joints below the pots.
Speak to us by phone instead of using the form. Making it safe comes first, by taking down loose work or propping it, and we price the permanent repair after that. Lime will not go in during a hard frost, so in winter the safe-making happens now and the rebuild waits for the right weather. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we miss you, we ring back once we are free.
One local thing
What the conservation area really controls
Conservation area status does not stop you repairing your house, and that is the thing people in Ashmore most often get wrong in both directions. Repointing a wall like for like, in the same material and the same joint finish, is maintenance and nobody needs to approve it.
What the designation actually controls is change: painting or rendering over bare brickwork, swapping a coping for a different one, or demolishing a boundary wall above a modest height. That last one catches people out, because a garden wall feels like your own business, and in a conservation area taking one down can need consent even when rebuilding it does not. If your wall fronts a lane and it is going to come down, ask first.
On the listed properties, and there are a good many here, the mortar itself is part of what is protected, so the practical route is to settle the specification before the scaffold goes up rather than after. That means agreeing the mix, the aggregate and the joint profile, then building a small trial panel in an out of the way spot and having it looked at while it is still a square metre and not an elevation.
It costs a fortnight at the front of the job and it is far cheaper than being asked to rake a finished wall back out. Plan the dates around it too: lime work cannot be laid in frost, so a consent that lands in November usually means a start in spring, and knowing that early is better than finding out in the middle of it.
Who you are dealing with
The bricklayer who prices your wall
We do brickwork and flint repairs in Ashmore, 19.7 miles from our base in Boscombe, and through SP5 to Sixpenny Handley and Tollard Royal, then down past Fontmell Magna to Iwerne Minster. Planning and building control here are Dorset Council's.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, with company number 15471719 on the public register. Thomas Hannen owns the business, drives up to look at your wall and writes the price. On Checkatrade, we have been rated 10 out of 10 by a verified customer. The visit is on us, and so is the itemised written quote. Before you book a visit in Ashmore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Ashmore?
Most repairs in Ashmore need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.
| Question | In Ashmore |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Ashmore. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Ashmore Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Ashmore. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about bricklaying in Ashmore
Does the Ashmore Conservation Area control what my pointing looks like?
Not on an unlisted house. Like for like repointing needs no consent, and Ashmore has no Article 4 direction adding to that. Painting, rendering or taking down a boundary wall inside the Ashmore Conservation Area can need permission, and on one of the village's listed entries the mortar itself is protected.
Dorset Council holds the designation. We work to what is already on the wall, and where the original has gone we take the mix from a sheltered joint under a cill.
How do I find out whether my cottage is listed?
The national list is public and searchable by address, and Dorset Council will confirm it for you. Ashmore carries twenty six listed entries in a very small village, so the odds are far higher here than in most places we work. If yours is on it, repointing in the wrong mortar is work to a listed building and needs consent, not good intentions. We will not open a joint on a listed wall until that is settled in writing.
Does the Cranborne Chase designation affect a garden wall?
It affects anything visible in the landscape more than it affects the pointing. Ashmore sits within the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs, where design scrutiny applies to what can be seen from beyond the plot, so the height and the coping of a new roadside wall matter more than they would elsewhere. Rebuilding an existing wall on its own line at the same height is a different conversation from putting up something new and taller.
You are a long way out. Will you come for a small repair?
We will, but not for an hour of work. Ashmore is close to twenty miles from our base, so half a day of pointing on its own does not stack up for either of us. What does work is banking the small items together: a cracked cill, a loose coping, two piers and a run of failed joint, priced as one visit. Send photographs and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth the trip.
Why does the wall at the bottom of my garden lean?
Usually because it has no footing worth the name and the ground beneath it moves. Around Ashmore the soil is freely draining, with cohesive pockets that shrink and swell, and an old wall built straight off the topsoil rides that movement until the lean passes its own centre of gravity. Once a wall leans further than its own thickness it is a rebuild and not a repoint, and we will say so rather than patch it.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near Ashmore
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Get an honest answer on your Ashmore brickwork
Tell us what the wall is doing and whether the building is listed. We come and look, and the written price includes the protection and the waiting time.