Bricklaying in Winterborne Stickland
Lime repointing, flint and brick repair, chimney stacks and roadside walls in Winterborne Stickland and the DT11 villages along the valley.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
The work
Weathered joints, loose flint and blown brick in Winterborne Stickland
Stickland is a downland village of soft, old, mixed walling, and what decides whether a repair lasts at Winterborne Stickland is the mortar mix and the time of year it goes in. Lime, not cement, on anything with age in it.
Cut out by hand, never with a disc. And the exposed face done in the warm half of the year so it can cure before the first frost. Get those right and one elevation properly repointed will outlast the whole house done badly.
The faults in Winterborne Stickland follow the weather. Joints on the south west face weathered back until you can get a finger in. Flints working loose out of a wall along the lane, usually starting under a coping that has lost its bedding. A brick plinth crumbling under a rendered wall. A stack that looks out of square from the road, or a roadside wall leaning a little further each winter.
We come out and look at the wall itself before anything is priced, because in Winterborne Stickland no two are built the same. What is in front of us decides the mix, the tools and the method, and it is worth an hour to get that settled. You get a straight answer on what needs doing this year and what will keep, then an itemised written quote for whichever of it you want. The site visit and the quote are both free.
The work
Brickwork jobs around Winterborne Stickland
Old brick here is soft and laid in lime. The brickwork around Winterborne Stickland is soft, handmade and solid wall, built so that water leaves through the joint, not through the face. We rake out by hand to about twice the joint width, and a disc cutter never goes near it because the cut widens the joint for good and takes the arris off.
Back in goes an NHL lime mix with the sand picked for colour and grain against what came out. The profile is matched to what the wall has: flush or slightly recessed on a sheltered face, weather struck on the south west elevation where the driven rain comes from. You approve a sample panel, cured rather than wet, before we start an elevation.
Flint walls, quoins and banding. A lot of the older walling here is flint with brick quoins, brick banding through it and a brick or stone coping on top. Flint has almost no bond to it, so the mortar is doing all the work, and once the top of the wall lets water in the flints start to loosen from the head down. We take the loose material out, rebed it in a fat lime mix, gallet the joints with small chips the way the wall was built, and rebuild the quoins and the coping so the head of the wall sheds water instead of holding it. Plenty of the old cottages sit on a brick or flint plinth with something softer above, and where that has been patched in cement water gets trapped and the brick behind goes to powder.
The village sits on a slope and a good many of its boundary walls are holding a bank back on footings that would not be allowed today. Once a coping goes the wall fills with water and bows, so we reset or replace copings, rebuild bowed lengths off a proper base, put weep holes into anything retaining ground and tie gate piers into the wall rather than leave them on the end. A stack out in Winterborne Stickland stands in clear air and is usually the first thing on the building to go: cracked flaunching, pointing gone from the top courses, then a lean. Where the roof is thatched the access has to be designed around the reed rather than dropped onto it, and that scaffold is priced as its own line so you can see it. Barns, outbuildings and new work are the rest, with materials chosen so a new wall does not shout against an old one.
How it runs
Brick and flint wall repairs, from first look to finish
You call, and Thomas comes out and looks at the wall. He works out what it is built from, brick, flint or a mix, what mortar was used, and why it has failed. He takes a sample so the new mortar can match.
His quote sets out getting to the wall, raking out, the mortar and sand, the bricks or flints to be replaced, any section to rebuild, and taking the rubble away. The work runs from start to finish on that one quote.
Garden and boundary walls are worked from the ground. A gable or chimney needs a scaffold, and where the wall runs along the lane we plan barriers and keep the road passable. Fresh mortar is covered in wet or cold weather. Waste is cleared every day. If a hidden crack or a failed lintel turns up, work stops until you have seen a photograph and agreed a price.
With some twenty five buildings and structures listed here, the first question is what your building is. Like for like repairs are maintenance, but on a listed building or wall even repointing counts as an alteration and needs listed building consent from Dorset Council. The village is recorded as having a conservation area, worth checking with the council, where a change of material or joint can need planning permission, and the Planning Portal sets out where that line falls. Boundary wall heights are in the guidance on walls, gates and fences. On a shared wall, the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 sets a notice period.
Cost
Flint, lime and lanes: what a wall repair costs
Flint and brick wall repairs in Winterborne Stickland have no per metre rate. The wall, its mortar and where it stands decide the price.
Where it stands. A gable that is also the boundary to a lane, a wall beside a thatched roof where the scaffold must stand clear of the reed, and a farm wall you can park beside are not the same job at all. How long the scaffold stays up matters as much as its size, which is why the work at height rules make access a line of its own.
Flint and old brick. Flint panels and soft brick are raked out by hand. A grinder cracks flints and chips brick edges. Relaying loose flints to match the old coursing is slow, careful work.
Matching the mortar. A lime mix, matched by sand and colour to the existing, is right on an older wall. It lets the wall dry out, and it gives before the brick does. A hard cement mix traps water and the faces spall.
What it hides. Cracks, bowed sections and failed lintels only show once the old mortar is out, so Thomas looks for the signs before he prices.
Ask other quotes what mortar they are using, whether they rake by hand, and whether the scaffold is included in their figure.
If something has moved
A roadside wall or chimney that has moved
Ring instead of using the form. A wall clipped by a wide vehicle on a narrow lane, a chimney that has shifted in a gale, or loose bricks above a door are safety problems. Keep people and cars away from it.
On the first visit we make it safe: take down loose courses, prop what is leaning, and fence it off if it is by the road. Thomas then prices the rebuild once he can see what the wall is sitting on. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For something that cannot wait, phone us, and if nobody picks up, we will ring back as soon as we can.
The one local thing
Exposure, frost, and the right time of year to point
The village lies in an open chalk valley and its most exposed elevations face south west, with very little between them and the weather. Driven rain does not wear a wall evenly. It works at the edges and the openings first: the reveals, the heads over windows, the verge, the coping, the top courses of a stack and the corner where two walls meet.
The middle of a panel is the last part to fail. So on most buildings in Winterborne Stickland the sensible job is one face done thoroughly, with the joints raked back far enough and a profile that sheds rather than holds water, plus the details on the other faces that are actually letting water in.
The other thing exposure decides is when the work happens. Lime mortar cures slowly and it will not take a frost while it is still green, and up here frost arrives earlier in the autumn and hangs about later in the spring than it does down on the coast. That makes the window for lime pointing roughly spring to early autumn, and it is a real constraint, not a tradesman's excuse. If someone offers to point your exposed gable in November, ask what happens to it in January.
Our advice for Winterborne Stickland is to get the wall looked at and priced over the winter, book it for the warm months, and use the cold weeks for the work that is not weather dependent: cutting out and replacing brick, rebuilding a length of roadside wall, resetting coping. It costs nothing to plan it that way round and it is the difference between a repair that stays put and one you pay for twice.
Who you are dealing with
One builder for walls across the valley
At about 19.1 miles from our Boscombe base, 80a Wolverton Road, Winterborne Stickland is a longer run for us, so we plan work in the Winterborne valley and tell you plainly when we can be there.
We also build and repair in Winterborne Kingston, Winterborne Whitechurch, Turnworth, Stourpaine, Bryanston and Blandford, all under Dorset Council. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and Thomas Hannen, who owns it, comes out to price the job himself. There is a verified 10 out of 10 from a customer on Checkatrade. Pricing is free: the site visit and the itemised written quote cost nothing. Before you book a visit in Winterborne Stickland, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Winterborne Stickland?
Most repairs in Winterborne Stickland 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 Winterborne Stickland |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Winterborne Stickland. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Winterborne Stickland Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Winterborne Stickland. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Dorset National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about bricklaying in Winterborne Stickland
How do I find out what protection our cottage has?
The listing and the conservation area are separate checks, and they are not the same thing. The National Heritage List tells you whether the building itself is listed, and Winterborne Stickland has 25 entries including Quarleston Farmhouse and the church of St Mary. Dorset Council mapping tells you whether you sit inside the Winterborne Stickland Conservation Area, which controls appearance whether or not a building is listed. Both get checked before I put a price on anything.
Which wall goes first if we do it in stages?
The south west facing one: exposure sets the specification around Winterborne Stickland, and driven rain lands on corners and openings, not on the flat of a wall, so the quoins, the verge and the heads of the windows on that face empty out first. A sheltered north east wall on the same house can be a long way behind it. Staging that way spends the money where the water is.
We want a new wall to the front. Will anyone object?
It gets looked at harder here than it would elsewhere. Winterborne Stickland sits within the Dorset national landscape, where anything visible from a public place draws design scrutiny, and inside the conservation area the material and the coping matter as much as the height. Built in a matching brick or stone with a traditional cap it rarely causes trouble. Built in modern block with a concrete cap, it does.
Is the ground here likely to be moving the wall?
Probably not the ground itself: Winterborne Stickland sits on freely draining soil, so the seasonal swelling and shrinking that opens joints on heavier land is less likely to be the cause. That pushes the diagnosis back onto the wall. A shallow footing, a corroded tie, a hard cement repair holding water in, or mortar simply at the end of its life. I would want to see the crack before choosing between them.
It is a long way out. Will you come for one repair?
Yes, though it gets planned rather than squeezed in. Winterborne Stickland is 19.1 miles from our base, so a single repair is usually paired with another visit out that way or booked as a half day of its own. Thomas prices it himself either way, and neither the visit nor the written quote is charged for, whether the job is one pier or a whole elevation.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near Winterborne Stickland
Nearby places we also cover for bricklaying, with straight-line distances from Winterborne Stickland, and the other trades we offer in Winterborne Stickland itself.
Bricklaying nearby
Our other trades in Winterborne Stickland
Brickwork and repointing guides
Lime or cement mortar: which do you need? Single storey extension: planning and building regs Subsidence cracks: which ones matterEverything we do in Blandford Forum Bricklaying, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a price for the brickwork in Winterborne Stickland
Tell us what the wall is doing and we will come and look at it. Free site visit, free itemised written quote, and a straight answer on what can wait.