Historic Chimney Rebuild at Rose Cottage

Recently we completed the rebuild of a beautiful 18th century local handmade brick Chimney in Tedburn St Mary. The existing chimney was near to collapse due to an insufficient foundation which was sturdy but uneven and had tried to be corrected and levelled out with a very thick joint of lime mortar. Over a period (we believe) of 200 years , the lime mortar had started to compress and therefore created a leaning affect and was completely unstable. If the chimney had if fact collapsed, it would have landed on top of the roof of the nearby veterinary surgery who is next door. This would have been the equivalent of a two-ton truck landing from the sky which would have caused devastating consequences.

When we started to dismantle the chimney, it had a hard cement render which was also causing more problems as the chimney was not able to breath. Because the cement render was so hard, we had to use reclaimed old bricks as the original bricks were unusable due them absorbing the cement. We see this happen unfortunately, a lot and the original bricks become damaged in the removal process which can deem them unusable and ugly. 

However, we are lucky to live relatively close to a historic brick supplier and I enjoy carefully selecting and matching the correct bricks for the right location and era to when they were made. Getting the right brick and lime match is key as most, if not all the original brick makers and sand quarries no longer exist and would have called it a day decades ago.

We all really enjoyed working for our very kind customers and we have done extensive work to the cob house as once again the property was covered in sand and cement and was unable to breathe therefore creating the cement to blow and fall off, but that is another story.