Bricklaying in Milborne St Andrew
Lime repointing, flint and brick repair, chimney stacks, barns and roadside walls in Milborne St Andrew and the villages along the A354.
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 and flint in Milborne St Andrew: what we do, and what we leave be
Most brickwork in this village is old, solid and bedded in lime, and the most useful repair in Milborne St Andrew is taking hard cement pointing back out of walls that were never built for it. Put a lime mortar back and the wall dries out through the joint. Leave the cement in and the brick face keeps taking the damage instead, one frost at a time.
Walls in Milborne St Andrew fail at the weather face, under old cement pointing, or by moving. Joints washed out on the face that takes the weather, deep enough to see into the wall. Grey ridges of old cement pointing standing proud of brick that is crumbling behind them. Or something that has moved: a roadside wall leaning out, a gate pier off plumb, a crack stepping up from the corner of a window.
We come and look at the building before saying anything about price, because in an old village like Milborne St Andrew the first question is what the wall is actually made of and whether it is listed. You get a straight answer on what needs doing, what can be left alone, and an itemised written price if you want one. The site visit and the quote are both free.
The work
Brickwork jobs in Milborne St Andrew
Solid walls in lime. The older cottages and walls of the village are built this way. Joints are raked out by hand, roughly to twice their width, with no disc cutter anywhere near a soft old arris, and repointed in an NHL lime mortar mixed with a sand chosen to match what came out for colour and grain.
You get a sample panel to look at in daylight before we commit to an elevation, and the profile goes back as the building has it, flush or a shade recessed on this fabric rather than the weather struck edge a modern wall carries. It is slower than cement and it is the only thing that works on a wall with no cavity and no damp proof course.
Flint, cob and brick together. In chalk country a good many older walls are not brick the whole way through. Flint with brick quoins and banding, brick dressings round openings, a brick plinth under a cob wall. The discipline is the same: match the mortar, keep it softer than what it holds, and never point flint so proud that water sits on the ledge. Where a wall is mixed we price the brick work and the flint work separately. The walls along the street take a beating from traffic coming through and most have no damp proof course, so the bottom courses go soft first, and some of the walls and piers here are listed in their own right, which we check before anything is opened up. Where a soft handmade brick has started spalling we cut out the whole brick and replace it from a reclaimed batch. On the threshing barns and cart sheds, single skin with piers on little more than a wide first course, we say plainly when a bowed section has gone too far to patch twice. A failed lintel over a cart opening is replaced before anything above it, and a pier with no foundation gets a footing dug under it. A stack on an old cottage takes weather from four sides, and where a roof is thatched we work with the thatcher rather than around him.
How it runs
How a brickwork repair is organised
Thomas comes out and looks at the wall himself: which bricks have spalled, how deep the joints have gone, whether a crack follows the joints or runs through the bricks, and whether anything is still moving. The quote is then set out by elevation, with access, raking out, brick replacement, any rebuilding, the mortar and disposal on their own lines, so it can be laid next to anyone else's. One point of contact sees it from start to finish.
Houses and walls that front the main road through Milborne St Andrew are worked from the footway behind barriers, or from a scaffold where a stack or a gable is involved; a garden wall is usually done from the ground. Rubble and old bricks leave with us, the site is swept daily, and anything opened up is left safe overnight. Should a section reveal something nobody could have seen, such as a rotten lintel, it is photographed and priced for you before we touch it.
The older core of the village sits within the Milborne St Andrew Conservation Area. In it, knocking down a front boundary wall or changing how an elevation looks can need planning permission, while like for like repair does not. Planning Portal guidance on external walls covers that, and its note on other permissions helps if you are unsure. A listed building or wall needs listed building consent from Dorset Council even for repointing. Structural work goes through building control, and a shared wall brings in the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Cost
Joints, bricks and access: what the price rests on
Brickwork in Milborne St Andrew has no rate per square metre, because the area of a wall says little until someone has looked at the joints and the bricks.
The set up. A cottage fronting Blandford Hill, a farmhouse with a yard to work from and a barn whose wall doubles as the boundary are three different jobs before a trowel comes out. A chimney stack or a gable needs a scaffold, a garden wall does not, and the work at height rules make any platform its own line.
How far the damage goes. On soft old brick the joints are raked out by hand, never with a grinder that chips the edges of the bricks. The depth of raking, the number of spalled faces to cut out and replace, and whether a section has to come down and be rebuilt set the hours.
Matching. Old brick in an odd size or colour has to be found, sometimes reclaimed. A lime mortar matched to the original takes more time than a bag of cement, and on older walls it is the right mix.
Movement. A crack through the bricks rather than along the joints can mean a failed lintel or trouble below ground, and that is looked into before it is patched.
Ask any rival quote whether the mortar is being matched, whether raking is by hand, and whether access is included.
If something has moved
Bricks falling, or a wall leaning out
If brickwork is loose overhead, a stack has shifted after a gale, or a roadside wall has been struck and is leaning, keep people and cars away from it and do not try to push it back. Use the phone, not the form.
Booked brickwork runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, but something that could fall deserves a call, and if you cannot get through we will return it as soon as we can. Making it safe is the first visit's job: loose bricks taken down, a leaning section propped or fenced off, and the permanent repair priced once we can see how far the movement goes.
The one local thing
A conservation area, and a lot of listed walls
Milborne St Andrew catches people out. The heart of the village is a conservation area, the Milborne St Andrew Conservation Area, so there taking down a front wall or changing how an elevation looks can need Dorset Council's say.
Like for like repair is fine inside it or out, and away from it, if your house is not listed, repointing, brick repair, a rebuilt pier or a new garden wall are yours to get on with. But Milborne St Andrew parish carries nearly thirty listed entries, and they are not all houses.
A front boundary wall is listed here. So are gate piers to a house that has gone, a threshing barn, and a pair of milestones. Whether you need consent turns on your particular address and even on which structure in the garden you are touching, not on where the village boundary runs.
Check before anyone lifts a chisel, because work to a listed structure without consent is a criminal matter rather than a form you forgot, and the responsibility sits with the owner. Curtilage is the part people miss: an outbuilding or a wall inside the grounds of a listed house can be covered by the listing without being named in it. And build the time in.
Consent for like for like lime repointing is not usually a difficult application, but it is not instant either, so it wants sorting before scaffold is booked rather than after. We identify all of this at the survey, tell you which of your walls it touches, and set the specification to suit a listed wall anyway: hand raking, a lime mix matched to what is there, a sample panel to approve, and the original profile put back.
Who you are dealing with
Checking who is building your wall
Up the A354 from Boscombe, about 20 miles, we cover the village and the DT11 places along that road, including Winterborne Whitechurch, Tolpuddle and Bere Regis, on into Blandford and Puddletown. Planning and building control sit with Dorset Council.
Look up Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd at Companies House under 15471719; it is registered in England and Wales. Thomas Hannen runs it and looks at every wall before he prices it. A verified Checkatrade customer gave us a 10 out of 10. There is no charge for the site visit or for the itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Milborne St Andrew, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Milborne St Andrew?
Most repairs in Milborne St Andrew 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 Milborne St Andrew |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Milborne St Andrew. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Milborne St Andrew Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Milborne St Andrew. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Milborne St Andrew. |
Questions
Questions about bricklaying in Milborne St Andrew
Do you cover a village this far out?
We do. Milborne St Andrew is 20 miles from our base, so we plan it as full consecutive days instead of dropping in for an hour at a time. That suits raking out and pointing, which wants a continuous run and a wall kept damp between lifts. Thomas Hannen still drives out to look at the wall and price it, and the site visit is free.
The joints are soft. Is that a fault?
Not on its own. On an older solid wall the joint is meant to be weaker than the brick or the stone, so it takes the movement and the salts and wears back first. That is the sacrificial part of the wall doing its job. It becomes a fault when it has washed back far enough to hold water in the recess. We rake to sound material and match what is already there.
Does the Poole Harbour nutrient rule affect a loft conversion?
Not normally. Milborne St Andrew drains into the Poole Harbour catchment, and the nutrient rule is aimed at schemes that create a new dwelling or new overnight accommodation, such as a holiday let or a self-contained annexe. A loft conversion in your own house is not normally caught, and nor is repointing, a garden wall or a re-roof. If you are creating a separate unit, raise it with Dorset Council early. Brickwork repairs sit outside it entirely.
Does living near the church put us under extra rules?
Only if the cottage itself is on the list. Milborne St Andrew has nearly thirty listed entries, the Parish Church of Saint Andrew among them, and standing next to a listed building puts no listed building control on your own house. The village centre is a conservation area, though, so changes that alter how a wall looks there can still need Dorset Council's agreement. Where a house is listed, consent comes first and the mortar mix, the joint finish and how far we rake back are all agreed with Dorset Council.
Why does a village wall fail at the top?
Because it takes rain on both faces and straight down onto the coping, so water sits in the top few courses and frost lifts them. On the free standing walls around Milborne St Andrew you see a loose coping, a slight bulge near the head and sound brickwork underneath. Rebuilding the head and getting a decent weathering back on it fixes most of them without touching the rest.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near Milborne St Andrew
Nearby places we also cover for bricklaying, with straight-line distances from Milborne St Andrew, and the other trades we offer in Milborne St Andrew itself.
Bricklaying nearby
Our other trades in Milborne St Andrew
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Get an honest look at the wall
Tell us which wall is bothering you and roughly how old the building is. We will come out, work out what it is made of and what it needs, and put an itemised written price in your hand.