Bricklaying in Cadnam and Bartley
Repointing, brick repair, chimney work and garden walls across Cadnam, Bartley and the SO40 lanes between them.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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The work
Brick repair and rebuilding in Cadnam and Bartley
Nearly all the failing brickwork in Cadnam and Bartley wants its joints renewing, not a rebuild. The job is to rake the tired joints out by hand and put back a mortar that suits the wall, and that is not the same mortar on a soft old cottage as it is on a 1970s cavity wall two doors along.
Out in Cadnam and Bartley, check the mortar, the brick faces and any wall onto the lane. Mortar that has gone back to sand, so you can pull it out of a joint with a thumbnail and daylight shows through the perpends. Brick faces that have begun to flake after a hard winter, nearly always on the elevation that takes the weather. And a wall onto one of the lanes that has gone out of plumb, lost its coping, or been clipped by something turning.
None of those are emergencies and none of them get better on their own. Water sits in an open joint, freezes, and takes a little more of the wall with it every winter. We come out, look at the whole elevation, not the patch you happened to notice, and tell you straight whether it is a morning's work, one proper repointing job, or something moving underneath that wants sorting first. The site visit and the written quote are both free.
The work
Brickwork jobs around Cadnam and Bartley
Old walls and newer ones. A good number of houses in the two villages went up before 1919: solid walls of handmade brick bedded in lime, built to let water back out through the joint.
Cement pointing on a wall like that shuts the escape route and you get spalling on the face at the first hard frost, so we rake out by hand to roughly twice the joint width, never with a disc cutter, and repoint in an NHL lime mortar with the sand matched to what came out. You see a sample panel in daylight before the rest goes ahead. Most of Cadnam and Bartley is later than that, detached houses and bungalows from the 1950s onwards with a brick outer skin and blockwork behind it, and those joints fail in a different pattern: they open at the exposed corners and along the top course under the verge, and a south west gable can run twenty years ahead of the rest of the house. That is one elevation to price, not a whole property.
Walls onto the lanes. These are the most exposed walls in Cadnam and Bartley. Walls fronting the lanes and the forest verges take knocks from traffic, roots and stock, and plenty were built with no damp proof course, so they draw water up and lose the bottom three courses first. We rebuild bowed sections, reset or renew coping, and put in gate piers tied to something rather than balanced on the end of a wall. Where faces have blown, pointing on its own puts a neat frame round the damage, so failed bricks are cut out and replaced, which on the older cottages means reclaimed or handmade stock and takes longer to source than to lay. Stacks come off a scaffold and the platform is a line in the quote. Anything structural goes through building control rather than round it.
How it runs
Brick repairs on a Forest-edge house, from first look to last joint
Thomas stands at the wall with you and prices it there. He checks the joints, the brick faces and any cracks, and because the ground under Cadnam and Bartley is shrinking clay, he looks at whether a crack steps up through the mortar, which says movement rather than weather. The written quote gives each part a line: access, raking out, the mortar mix, each elevation, bricks to replace, crack stitching, and taking the rubble away.
Houses in Cadnam and Bartley mostly sit in their own plots, so the tower or scaffold goes on the drive and the lane stays open. The ground beneath the wall is sheeted, and dust and broken brick are cleared away at the end of every day. A brick that comes out to reveal a crumbling one behind it, or a wall tie rusted through, is shown to you with a written price before any more is done.
Planning here is the New Forest National Park Authority, which looks closely at anything seen from a lane. Its Forest North East conservation area includes Bartley but not Cadnam village. On a listed building, repointing that changes the mortar or the joint can need listed building consent, so check first. The Authority's address search and its heritage guidance tell you where you stand, and a wall you share with a neighbour can bring in the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Cost
What moves the cost of brick repairs here
Brickwork has no square metre rate, because a wall's size tells you nothing until the joints and bricks have been looked at.
How old the wall is. A late sixties Cadnam house is cavity-built in cement mortar, and repointing it is mostly rake out and refill. An older Bartley cottage is likely solid brick in soft lime, raked by hand and pointed back in lime, which takes longer.
Movement in the clay. This ground shrinks in a dry summer and swells in a wet winter, and an oak close to the house makes it worse. A crack that has stopped moving can be stitched with bed-joint reinforcement. One still moving needs its cause found first: a leaking drain, a downpipe spilling by the footing, or the tree.
The platform. Bungalow eaves are within reach of a tower. A chimney on a detached house needs scaffold round it, and work at height rules make access its own line.
Matching bricks. Spalled bricks have to be matched for size and colour, and reclaimed ones for a roadside cottage take time to find.
Ask any rival quote: how deep is the rake, by hand or by grinder, what mortar, and what is the brick count?
If something has moved
A stack that has shifted or a garden wall that is leaning
Anything leaning or overhead comes first. If a chimney has moved after a gale, a boundary wall on a lane has been clipped by a vehicle, or a garden wall is being pushed over by roots, keep people away from it and ring rather than use the form.
Do not try to push a leaning wall back yourself. On the first visit we take down what is loose, prop or cordon off what is left, and look at why it moved before pricing the rebuild. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. When a wall or stack is unsafe, phone, and if you get no answer, leave a message and we will call back as soon as possible.
The one local thing
Ground that shrinks and swells, and cracks that come and go
The ground under Cadnam and Bartley is cohesive and it changes volume with the seasons. It swells when it is wet and shrinks back when it dries out, and a brick wall sitting on it moves with it. What you see is a crack that opens through a dry August and has closed up again by February, usually stepping diagonally through the joints out of the corner of a window, a door head or a bay.
That pattern is worth recognising, because it changes what you should do. A crack that moves with the weather is a ground story, not a pointing story, and filling it in the summer only means it splits again the following year.
The useful work is nearly always about water, not brick. Get rainwater away from the footing: a downpipe emptying onto a border beside the wall, a soakaway sited too close to the house, or a silted gully will all keep the ground next to a foundation wetter than the ground beneath it, and that difference is what does the moving. Approved Document H sets out where surface water is supposed to end up.
Mature trees on plots in Cadnam and Bartley take a lot out of the ground in a dry summer, and removing one can be as unhelpful as planting it, because the ground then swells back over several years. If we think a crack wants watching for a season before anyone touches it, we will tell you that, even though it means we do not get the work this month.
Who you are dealing with
A bricklaying firm you can check before you book
Our base is in Boscombe, 17.5 miles from Cadnam and Bartley, and the rest of SO40 is covered too: Copythorne, Winsor, Ashurst and Netley Marsh. The National Park Authority handles planning, and building control is New Forest District Council, which matters for a structural repair such as a new lintel.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, and its number at Companies House is 15471719. Thomas Hannen runs it, and he is who comes to look at the wall and price it. A verified customer gave the firm 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Both the visit and the itemised written quote are free. Before you book a visit in Cadnam and Bartley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Cadnam and Bartley?
Most repairs in Cadnam and Bartley 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 Cadnam and Bartley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Cadnam and Bartley. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Forest North East Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Cadnam and Bartley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the New Forest National Park, where design is looked at more closely and permitted development rights are narrower. |
Questions
Questions about bricklaying in Cadnam and Bartley
Bartley is in a conservation area. Does the National Park matter too?
The National Park matters more in Cadnam and Bartley, not less. The whole settlement sits under the New Forest National Park Authority, which applies design scrutiny to anything visible, and Bartley also lies inside the Forest North East conservation area, with Cadnam village just outside it to the north-west.
For a like for like repoint that is no obstacle at all. It becomes one when you want a different brick, a different colour or a new opening. There are 10 listed entries here as well, so the address is worth checking.
What does the survey cover on a wall with no cavity?
The joint first, then everything around it. Where a house in Cadnam and Bartley predates 1919 the walls are solid, so we check how far back the mortar has gone with a rake test, whether the brick faces are spalling, what the cills and the plinth are doing, and where rainwater lands. A joint soft all the way through is a different job from one weathered on the surface.
Does adding a bedroom here bring in the Solent catchment?
Not on its own. This sits inside the Solent nutrient neutrality catchment, which covers Solent Maritime and the harbour designations, and it engages where a scheme adds a new dwelling or a separate overnight unit, such as an annexe or a holiday let. A loft conversion or an extension adding a bedroom to your own house is not caught, and nor is repointing, a rebuilt wall, a chimney repair or a re-roof because no new unit of accommodation is created. Raise it at the drawing stage, not later.
When in the year is outside pointing easiest?
Spring to autumn, and we keep new work well away from frost. Fresh mortar has to be kept off freezing nights and out of driving rain for its first few days, so in a wet January more of the day goes on sheeting than on pointing. Cadnam and Bartley is 17.5 miles from our base, so work here runs in blocks rather than odd half days, which makes an early booking worth having.
Can inter-war brickwork be pointed the same as post-war?
Not usually, and there is plenty of inter-war housing here. Those walls are early cavity or solid, laid in a soft lime or a weak gauged mortar, and a modern strong mix put back into them will shed brick faces within a few winters. The post-war houses take a gauged mix without complaint. We work out which we are standing in front of before mixing anything, because it is not easily undone.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near Cadnam and Bartley
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Tell us which wall is worrying you and we will come and look at the whole elevation, not just the patch. Free visit, free itemised written quote.