Bricklaying in Lyndhurst

Period brickwork needs care. Much of Lyndhurst is later nineteenth century brick, and a fair amount of it is more ambitious than it first looks: banded and polychrome courses, corbelled detail under the eaves, gauged arches over the windows.

Plenty of homes in Lyndhurst predate 1919, so solid walls are common, and a solid wall has to stay breathable. We rake by hand to roughly twice the joint width, wash out and point in an NHL lime gauged with a sand chosen for colour, finished flush or slightly back so the brick reads and the joint does not. Where an original weather struck finish survives we put that back rather than default to a bucket handle profile because it is faster.

Matching, which is most of the job. A Victorian facing brick is not a standard size and the colour range in a single elevation can be wide. We work from samples: a small trial panel of the proposed mortar left to dry and judged in daylight, and brick samples, usually reclaimed or handmade, brought to you before anything is ordered. It adds a week at the front of a job and it is the difference between a repair you stop noticing and one you see every time you come up the path. In a village that is a conservation area in its own right, inside the National Park, that week is also what keeps the elevation looking like the rest of the street.

Stacks here are tall, often shared between two houses, and they take weather from every direction. Re-flaunching, repointing, rebedding pots and rebuilding from the last sound course where there is movement. Arches over windows drop when the timber or steel behind them gives up, and cutting in a new lintel and rebuilding the arch above it is a careful day rather than a quick one. Anything structural like that is building control work and we say so up front.

Faces flaking off, particularly low down and on the weather side, are usually the legacy of a cement repoint or of ground piled up over the damp proof course. We cut the failed bricks out individually and bed matched stock in, and where the cause is levels or a broken gully we tell you, because pointing over it only buys a couple of winters. The ground here shrinks and swells, so where the rainwater goes beside a footing is worth sorting before the wall is.

Boundary walls to the road with brick piers, coping and gate piers get rebuilt off their own footing where a length has bowed. And new building when it is wanted: extensions and garden rooms in cavity construction, blockwork inner leaf, outer leaf in stretcher bond, wall ties at proper centres and a visible damp proof course. Planning Portal guidance on garden walls covers the height a new wall can go to, and the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 covers anything on the line with a neighbour.

We do not quote a rate per square metre. A metre of wall tells you nothing until the joints and the bricks have been looked at.

How the joints come out. Raking by hand is slow but safe on soft Victorian brick. A disc is quicker, but it widens joints and chips the edges of old bricks. How deep the mortar has perished and how many faces have spalled set the hours.

Matching. A new brick in an old wall shows for years. Finding a good match may mean reclaimed stock, and getting the lime mortar right means trial panels before the real work.

Why it moved. A wall pushed by a tree root, or cracked because a downpipe soaks the clay at its foot, needs the cause dealt with or the repair cracks again.

Getting to it. A front boundary wall off the pavement, a rendered rear return and a shared stack three storeys up are three different set ups. How long scaffold stands matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules give it its own line.

Ask any other bricklayer how deep they rake and whether by hand or disc, what goes into the mortar, and whether the scaffold is in the price.

From our Boscombe base, Lyndhurst is 14.9 miles. We do brickwork in the village, Emery Down, Minstead, Bank, Brockenhurst and Ashurst, and out across SO43 into the middle of the Forest. For planning, the New Forest National Park Authority decides.

The business is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen, its owner, looks at your wall and works out the price himself. Our Checkatrade page shows a verified customer's 10 out of 10. We charge nothing for the visit or for the itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Lyndhurst, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Lyndhurst 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.