Bricklaying in East Boldre
Repointing, brick repairs, outbuildings and new walls across East Boldre and the SO42 lanes, priced in writing once somebody has actually looked at the wall.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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On the plots along this lane the brickwork that goes first is rarely the house. It is the outbuilding, the boundary wall and the bottom of anything standing on a shallow footing, because the ground under East Boldre moves with the seasons and a shallow footing moves with it.
Brickwork in East Boldre, on this side of the forest, moves with the clay, washes out on the open face and takes knocks beside the lane. A stable, a store or a workshop with stepped cracking at one corner that seems to open through the summer, as the clay underneath dries and shrinks. Mortar washed out of the face that takes the weather off the open forest, usually the south west one, until you can put a finger into the bed joint. And a wall by the lane that something has caught, or that a root has quietly pushed over.
All three are ordinary brickwork and all three are cheaper done early, because an open joint lets a winter into the wall and a moving wall does not stop on its own. We come out and survey it, say plainly which of those you have, and price it in writing before anything is disturbed.
The work
What we take on around these plots
Older walls are solid brick and single skin. Most of the older brickwork out in East Boldre is soft red brick in a lime mortar with no cavity behind it. The joints come out by hand with a hacking iron and a plugging chisel, because a grinder on soft brick takes the arris off and that damage is permanent.
We rake back to about twice the width of the joint, damp the wall, and fill in lifts with an NHL 3.5 lime and a sharp sand, kept weaker than the brick so the mortar wears and the face does not, flush on the sheltered elevations and weather struck where the wall takes the rain head on. Outbuildings, stables and stores are the commonest brickwork on plots like these by a distance: single skin, no cavity, piers at the corners and often a wide opening with a tired lintel over it. The work is usually local: a cracked corner rebuilt, a new lintel in with the opening propped and needled, frost damaged brick replaced at the base, then the lot repointed so it dries evenly. Where the roof has been leaking into the top of a wall for years, that gets sorted first or the brickwork does it again.
Cob on a brick plinth. There is still cob in East Boldre parish, usually rendered and standing on a brick plinth, and the plinth is our half of it: failed brick comes out, the joints go back in lime, and the render stays off the plinth, so the wall carries on drying at the bottom instead of pushing the damp upwards. On this exposed edge stacks lose their flaunching and joints before anything else on the house and are repointed or rebuilt above the roof line off a scaffold, while on the ground it is lifted brick-on-edge copings, gate piers out of plumb and boundary walls rebuilt off a proper footing where the movement is live.
How it runs
Brick repairs on forest clay, from survey to pointing
Before pricing, Thomas wants to know why the brickwork failed. He looks at the cracks, the joints and what sits near them: a downpipe emptying at the footing, a tree, or clay that has shrunk in a dry spell. He then itemises access, raking out, the mortar, each elevation's area, brick replacement and disposal on the quote. One company is answerable for every stage.
Open ground usually leaves room for a tower beside a gable or stack. A wall on the lane may need warning signs for traffic. Mortar is mixed on boards, and bricks and sand sit inside your gate, away from grazing stock. The site is swept every afternoon. Where a crack has opened through a dry summer, the ground and drainage are sorted before a brick goes back, because rebuilding over the cause means cracking again. Anything hidden that we find is photographed and priced before we continue.
Being inside the National Park, East Boldre has its planning dealt with by the Park Authority, and building control by New Forest District Council. Repointing like for like is repair. A change of material or appearance is not, and on the handful of listed entries around the parish it needs consent. Conservation area status is worth confirming, and National Park heritage and conservation guidance is a short read before you commit to anything seen from the road.
Cost
What decides the cost of brickwork out here
Brickwork is never priced by the square metre. The cause and the joints decide it. Why it cracked. Clay under one corner shrinking through a dry summer, a tree drawing water from it, or a downpipe emptying at the footing. The cause is dealt with first. Stitching the crack with helical bars and repointing is one job, and taking down and rebuilding a section is a bigger one.
Joints and faces. How deep the joints need raking, and how many brick faces have blown, set the hours. Older soft brick is raked by hand and pointed in lime.
A matching brick. Finding one of the right size and colour can take a search through reclaim stock, and a wrong brick in a front wall shows for years.
Where the wall is. A cottage wall right on the lane, a stable at the end of a track and a chimney stack each need different access. Under the work at height rules, the platform is itemised.
From any competing bricklayer, find out how deep they rake, which mix they use, whether they have looked at the cause of the cracking, and whether scaffolding is included.
If something has moved
A stack, gable or lane wall that is moving
A chimney stack with movement in it, bricks dropping from a gable or parapet, or a lane wall hit by a vehicle or heaved by roots: ring the number rather than sending the form, and keep people, cars and livestock well back.
On the first visit anything loose enough to fall is taken down, whatever cannot come down yet is propped or fenced, and we look at the cause. A price for the permanent repair follows. We run booked jobs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we are up a ladder and miss you, we phone back once we are down.
The local part
Ground that moves, and where your rainwater ends up
The ground under this parish carries a significant shrink and swell rating. Cohesive ground gives up water and shrinks through a dry summer, takes it back and swells over a wet winter, and anything sitting on a shallow footing rides up and down with it.
That is why so much of the cracking on outbuildings and garden walls in East Boldre is seasonal: it opens in August, closes by February, and comes back the following year. A wall built off a foundation dug below the depth where that movement happens does not do it, which is the difference between rebuilding a wall once and repairing it every few years.
The part you can control is water. A downpipe emptying beside a footing, a soakaway sited too close to a wall, or a bed built up against the brickwork all concentrate the wetting and drying in one place, and that is exactly where the crack turns up. Approved Document H is about drainage rather than brickwork, but on ground like this getting the surface water away from the wall is half the repair and the cheaper half.
Mature trees do the same thing from the other direction, drawing water out of cohesive ground in a dry spell faster than anything else on the plot. Where a crack is still live we would rather fit a couple of tell-tales and watch it for a season than rebuild the same wall twice.
Who you are dealing with
Bricklayers for the lanes between Beaulieu and Lymington
From Boscombe it is 16.7 miles to East Boldre, and we build and repair brickwork there and in Beaulieu, Boldre, Brockenhurst, Lymington and along the SO42 lanes. Planning is the Park Authority's job and building control belongs to New Forest District Council.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, is owned by Thomas Hannen, who comes to see the wall and prices it in person. A customer verified by Checkatrade rated us 10 out of 10. There is no charge to come out, and the written quote listing every item is free. Before you book a visit in East Boldre, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in East Boldre?
Most repairs in East Boldre 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 East Boldre |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for East Boldre. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Forest South 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 East Boldre. 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 East Boldre
Our address is in Forest South East. What does that mean?
Appearance is controlled and the authority is the New Forest National Park Authority instead of a district council. East Boldre falls inside the Forest South East conservation area, so a like for like repoint stays maintenance with nothing to apply for, while a change of mortar colour, profile or material is a change and may need consent. There are 8 listed entries in the settlement, and if yours is one the position is different again.
Should a new garden wall have movement joints on this ground?
On any run of length, yes. The ground around East Boldre is cohesive and shrinks and swells through the year, so a long unbroken wall on a shallow footing has nowhere to go when the clay moves and it cracks at its weakest point, usually beside a pier or a gate. A joint built in at intervals gives it somewhere to move. That is easy at the start and impossible to add later.
Do Park rules cover an outbuilding out of sight of the road?
Often they do. The National Park Authority scrutinises what is visible, and visible here means from a lane, a track or open forest instead of only from your own gate, so a building at the back of a plot is not automatically outside it. Repair in matching materials rarely causes any difficulty. It is a change of material, a new opening or extra height that gets a proper look.
What does one more winter do to a soft joint?
It moves the damage out of the mortar and into the brick. Water sits in a hollow joint, freezes, and takes the arrises off the bricks either side, and a spalled brick has to be cut out and replaced rather than simply pointed. One winter rarely costs you a wall. It does turn a pointing job into a pointing and brick replacement job, and an open wall head is the worst place to leave it.
Who will actually be on site doing the work?
Thomas Hannen owns the firm and prices every job himself, so the person quoting it is the person answerable for it, and you get his number rather than an office switchboard. On a repoint or a garden wall out in East Boldre the work goes one elevation at a time. The company is Bournemouth Roofing and Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near East Boldre
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Free quote
Get a written price for your East Boldre brickwork
Send the postcode and a photograph of the wall if you can get to it. The site visit is free, the quote is itemised line by line, and Thomas prices it himself.