Bricklaying in Corfe Castle

Lime joints on stone and brick. On the old walls this is the core of the work. Joints are raked out by hand to about twice their width, with no disc cutter near a soft old arris, and repointed in an NHL lime mortar with a sand matched to what came out.

You get a trial panel in daylight before we commit an elevation, and the profile goes back as the building has it, bucket handle, weather struck or cut flush. With 134 listed entries in Corfe Castle, from the castle and the Old Town Hall down to ordinary houses and walls, that is the standard the work gets judged by.

Stacks and roadside walls. In a village of long low cottages the stack is often the only brickwork on the building, and it is the part that takes weather from every side. Flaunching cracks and lets water into the head, the top few courses lose their pointing, and eventually a stack starts to lean. We rebuild stacks course for course where they have gone, reusing the original brick where it is sound. It is work at height, off a scaffold or a tower, and the platform is priced openly under the same HSE guidance on work at height that governs any roof job. On the ground, roadside walls through the village take punishment from vehicles wider than the street was built for, and garden walls on the slopes act as low retaining walls whether they were designed to or not. Most have no damp proof course, so they draw water up and the bottom courses go soft first. We rebuild bowed lengths, reset coping, put in a DPC where the wall will accept one, and bond gate piers in rather than sat on the end of a wall.

Where faces have blown, pointing round them just tidies the damage, so failed bricks are cut out and replaced with reclaimed or handmade stock matched on size, colour and texture. Sourcing is the slow part on a period building, and we say so at the quote rather than with the scaffold up. A cracked head over a window usually means the lintel or the timber behind it, and a wall that has spread at the base usually means the footing, so we say which before quoting: repointing a crack that is still moving is money spent twice. New brickwork has to fit in: extension skins, new openings and garden walls built to sit alongside what is there, where the brick and the mortar colour matter as much as the setting out.

We do not price stone or brick work by the square metre. The joints and the stone decide it. Getting to it. A cottage wall on the pavement, an outbuilding with room all round it and a house set back behind its own boundary wall are three different set ups. A chimney wants a scaffold. Under the work at height rules the platform is a priced line, not a favour.

Raking out. Old lime joints are raked by hand. A disc cutter is quicker, but it widens the joints and chips the arrises of soft stone and brick. How deep the rake has to go decides the hours more than the area does.

Matching the stone. A cracked or spalled Purbeck stone has to be matched in colour and bed, often from reclaimed stock. Cutting one out and setting a new one in lime is slow work, and each one is counted on the quote.

The mix. Cement mortar on soft stone traps water, and the face blows in the frost. Lime, with a sand matched to the old joint, costs more in time and less over the life of the wall.

Before you choose, ask each firm how deep they rake and whether by hand, which mortar they will use, and how many stones they have allowed for.

Corfe Castle sits about eleven and a half miles from our Boscombe base. We price wall, chimney and boundary work in the village and out to Church Knowle, Kingston, Harmans Cross and Ridge, and on to Wareham and Swanage, in BH20 and beyond, under Dorset Council.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, is Thomas Hannen's business. He comes out to see the wall and prices it himself. There is a verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade if you want to read it. The visit is free, and the itemised quote you get in writing is free too. Before you book a visit in Corfe Castle, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Corfe Castle 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.