Heritage lime mortar and brick skills working weekend

A weekend working party helping maintain the 18th century brick walls at the Historic Gardens.

Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd March 10- 4 ish

Please join us for one or both days, it’s a chance to improve your existing, and learn new, skills in maintaining heritage bricks and walling.

Lewis Hobbs, our SPAB representative and expert from conservation company, Oliver Architecture, will lead the day on Saturday (only), leaving us to steam ahead with the improved and remembered skills on Sunday.

In 2024 a SPAB led weekend in June, helped us understand the need for regular maintenance work on the historic Gardens metres and metres of surrounding walls.

You’ll get hands-on experience and support to have a go at conservation techniques on real historic buildings, under expert supervision.

On both days you’ll get stuck into brick cleaning and replacement, lime mixes and mortars, and raking out and repointing… your help will also be enabling this 18th century walled garden to stay open and accessible to the public.

Who is it for?

We welcome adults with an interest in old buildings and a desire to get their hands dirty, so whether you’re an old hand or you’ve never picked up a trowel before, you’ll be welcome.

This is also perfect for locals who might want to continue to volunteer from time to time with quarterly maintenance days

What you’ll learn: you will have a go at:

• Cleaning historic brickwork
• Preparing appropriate lime mortar mixes
• Carrying out mortar repairs and& repointing
• Replacing defective bricks with suitable substitutes

Tickets

Costs are very low for this training and to cover, training, costs, equipment and materials.

(NB Early Bird ‘Returners’ are free for both days – donations welcome)

Included: basic training and supervision, the tools needed, light refreshments.

(please note lunch is not included, please bring a packed lunch or purchase form the onsite outdoor cafe)

Places limited to 12