Repointing and mortar matching in Downton

Soft red brick on The Borough and the lanes off it. Much of old Downton predates 1919, and a good part of it is older still: soft handmade brick frontages, a fair amount panelled with flint, nearly all solid wall with nothing behind the outer face.

On a Downton wall joints come out by hand with a hacking iron and a plugging chisel, back to about twice their width, because a disc cutter that wanders takes the arris off a soft brick for good. The wall is damped down, filled in lifts, brushed back and struck to the profile it already carries. The mortar is a natural hydraulic lime kept weaker than the brick, so the joint wears out before the face does.

Flint panels and gauged arches. A good deal of older Downton is flint panelled between brick lacing courses, with brick quoins at the corners and a gauged arch turned over each window. Those three want three approaches in one elevation. Flint is bedded rather than coursed, so the joints are irregular and cannot be raked to a set depth without loosening stones. The lacing courses and quoins rake normally. A gauged arch is different again: its joints are a couple of millimetres wide and want a fine lime putty. We point each with the material it takes rather than running one mix across the face.

Taking a hard repoint out. Nearly every older wall in Downton has been pointed at least once in sand and cement. It is why so many frontages have joints that look sound standing in front of hollow, flaking brick. The cement has to come out without widening the joint, and blown faces are cut out and replaced with reclaimed brick, matched against a sample and a trial panel.

Post-war cavity skins. Much of Downton went up after the war and is a different animal: a fired brick outer skin in a gauged cement and sand mortar, struck weather or bucket handle. Those joints pit and open at the arris rather than washing out, and the right repair is a matched cement mix rather than lime. Put a strong modern mix into the old wall on the next street and it takes the brick faces off within a few winters. Half a mile apart, and they want opposite things.

Stacks, parapets and copings. On the older Downton cottages the stack carries the oldest mortar and takes weather from every side, so it goes first: cracked flaunching, loose pots, joints you can see daylight through. Repointing above the flashing and renewing the flaunching is usually enough. Brick on edge copings do the same job for the wall below, and once the bedding under a coping has gone the whole length starts drawing water.

The area of a Downton wall is the easiest part to measure and tells you the least. Depth of the joints. Joints raked back to a proper depth take longer than a surface scratch, and on soft brick they must be raked by hand. That is most of the hours.

The state of the brick. Where an old cement repoint has trapped water, the faces may have spalled. Those bricks are cut out and replaced, or turned round, before any pointing starts.

Matching the mortar. On most pre-1919 walls in Downton lime is right. Too strong a mix is the classic mistake, because one hard frost then takes the face off the brick rather than the joint. Getting the sand and colour to match takes a small trial panel first.

Getting to it. A cottage front on The Borough straight onto the pavement, a gable reached off a tower and a stack on a ridge each need different access, and the work at height rules make the scaffold a separate line.

Ask any other quote how deep the joints are raked and whether by hand or by disc, what mix is being used and whether it has been matched, and whether the scaffold has been allowed for.

On most of our patch you agree the mortar with the builder on the day. Here you often cannot. With the village inside a conservation area and more than a hundred listed entries in it, a large share of the older frontages are addresses where the mortar itself is protected fabric.

There, repointing needs consent in advance, and an application is not satisfied by the word mortar. It wants the binder named, the sand described, the proportions given, the joint profile stated and usually a trial panel on the building.

That changes the order you do things in. Survey and sample first, specification written, submitted, and the work booked for after the decision. It also changes what a quote should look like. Ask anyone pricing your wall to write the binder, the sand and the profile into the document, because a quote saying only that the wall will be repointed cannot go in front of a conservation officer. We write it that way as standard, and the permissions you may need is a sensible read before you commit to a start date.

Downton, Charlton All Saints, Redlynch and the Avon valley villages are all within our area, 18.4 miles from our base in Boscombe, and Wiltshire Council is the authority for them. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales as company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Downton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

It is owned by Thomas Hannen. He visits, looks at the joints and prices the repoint himself. A verified customer left a 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit is free, and so is the written quote with each item shown separately.

Most repairs in Downton 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.