Working on Abergavenny's older buildings
The core of Abergavenny is a proper market town: Georgian and Victorian buildings along and around the main streets, many of them older behind their frontages, built with solid walls of local stone and brick and finished in lime plaster. Move out of the centre and the character changes quickly. On the edge of the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons), below the Sugar Loaf, the Blorenge and the Skirrid, the stock is rubble-stone cottages, smallholdings and hill farms — thick, irregular walls of local sandstone bedded in lime or earth mortar, traditionally protected with lime render and coats of limewash.
Rubble-stone construction is unforgiving of modern materials. The wall is not a solid mass but two faces with a core between them, and it relies on soft, permeable mortar and finishes to move moisture out. Strong cement pointing cracks away from the stone and channels water into the core; cement render holds it there; gypsum plaster inside blisters and grows salts as the wall tries to dry inwards. On exposed hillside sites, where wind-driven rain is a fact of life, the failure comes faster. Lime render and limewash exist precisely for these conditions — they take the weather, breathe, and are simply renewed when they have done their job.
What we do in Abergavenny
- Lime plastering — internal three-coat work and repairs to original plaster on stone and lath
- Lime rendering — weathering coats and roughcast for exposed rubble-stone walls, finished in limewash
- Lime pointing — removing hard cement joints and repointing in a mortar that suits the stone
- Limecrete floors — breathable replacement floors for damp cottages and farmhouses
- Full renovation of period and listed buildings, managed from strip-out to decoration
Listed buildings and conservation in and around Abergavenny
Abergavenny town centre includes a conservation area, and the town and surrounding parishes contain many listed buildings, from townhouses to farmhouses and churches. Work that alters a listed building — which can include stripping and replacing plaster or render — is likely to need listed building consent from the local authority. Some of the countryside around the town also falls within the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, where the park authority handles planning matters. None of this should put you off repairing your building properly; consent processes tend to go smoothly when the proposal is honest lime-based repair. We can describe our materials and methods in the detail an application requires.
Nearby areas we also cover
From Abergavenny we cover Crickhowell, Llanfoist, Govilon, Gilwern and the villages up the Usk valley towards Brecon, as well as Llanvihangel Crucorney, the Llanthony valley, Raglan and Usk. Pontypool, Blaenavon and the heads of the valleys are also within easy reach.