Penicuik House

I went to Penicuik House this week. The remains of the big house, and it is huge, are being conserved following a fire in the late nineteenth century. For a house that has stood as a ruin for over a century, its in remarkably good shape. The locality is beautiful and even the graffiti has something pleasantly historical about it.

The beechwoods there, beside the Pentland Hills, are superb, as are the house grounds which are open to the public. But I wasn't there just to enjoy the woods and the grounds. I went to learn some extra skills with the Scottish Lime Centre who, while based in Fife, also have a training centre there. It allows people like me to learn at the feet of the craftspeople who can repair traditional buildings, ie pre-1914, to the highest standards. If a little bit rubs off on us then the buildings will be better placed to face the elements for another hundred years and the folk who live in them will be saved considerable sums of money. Repairs with the widely available materials that most builders use cause medium and long term harm that is costly to fix. Cement pointing on traditional masonry can rot stone quickly and subsequent repairs in cement to the crumbling stone can only compound the problem. However it's not all doom and gloom. Repairs can be done well and one of the many things we learned this week was replicating masons tooling to match surrounding work.

Glasgow

I just finished repointing the most needy parts on a house in one of Glasgow's Conservation Areas. I used a lime mortar appropriate to the wall type on this building. Cement mortar would have been inappropriate. In short it can be lead to disaster on pre-1914 buildings because it causes damp and stone rot. And yet you see it everywhere.

Next week I am going on a course to learn skills to make surface stone repairs that match original work, unlike the one hidden beneath the masonry paint in this picture.

Shandon

I just finished a retaining wall in Shandon. The original was built in stone and lime sometime in the late nineteenth century when alterations were made to the house. I know this because mouldings from a chimney stack the like of which are still on the house were among the rubble behind the wall. It was blackened inside so was on the house for a while. I suppose it must have been removed when a new wing was added.

Anyway, that's all very interesting but my real point is something else. This repair and others similar that I have done in the last few years make me realise that drystone doesn't just look nice. It can also be the cheapest and most sensible way to make a repair. Other quotes on this job advocated a wall behind of breeze block and mortar with a front of mortared stone. In other words, two walls with associated drainage to stop water pushing them over and much labour at much cost. Drystone can be more cost effective than a block wall with stone veneer to retain a bank. It is free draining so there is less labour and no future trouble on that count, there is only one wall required so there is less labour on that count, and there is no mortar so its a greener option to boot as enormous amounts of energy are used to make cement. What's more, if ever you need to move it to extend the house you won't need a JCB to pull it out, you can take it apart by hand and rebuild on the new line.

Built right it will retain any bank, even a very tall one,
such as this one of 7 feet that I built in Gartocharn. Its predecessor was a double wall of breeze block with a stone veneer in front that collapsed after only 20 years, swept away by a build up of water one wet autumn a few years ago. The one before that apparently fell down too. I don't know why that one fell, but some poor building along with the water build up did for the one I saw. It seems to me that freedraining drystone was always the best solution to retain this bank. I thought the structural engineer that I built this one for was pushing its ability to transfer weight too far when he built a deck and timber summer house on top but he was, and two years later still is, unconcerned.