Court Lodge

The site is one of the four modern dwellings built in the 1990’s within an 18th-century Grade II Listed walled garden.  The new house was built against the south side of the Grade II Listed garden wall, on the opposite side of the wall from the two Victorian outbuildings, which were constructed against the north side of the garden wall.  There was evidence of damp penetration within the house, which was caused by water penetration through the exposed areas of the original garden wall.  The work consisted of working out the causes of the damp penetration, devising a cure and obtaining Listed Building Consent for the proposed works.

Through examination of the existing structures and the historic records it was apparent that an earlier building, probably a Victorian greenhouse, had been built against the southern side of the wall, where the house now stood.  It was also clear that the removal of this structure had left holes through the wall, including a timber board that supported the upper end of the rafters, which was causing some of the damp issues.  In addition to this, the pointing to the brickwork was in poor condition, and in places had been repointed using cement mortar, which is extremely damaging for traditional lime mortar brickwork.  It also appeared that the coping stones at the top of the wall had become dislodged, allowing water to penetrate through the top of the wall.  finally, there was an area of cement render, which was poorly flashed and was causing water to get trapped behind the cement render tracking into the house.

Having diagnosed all these issues, we designed the solutions, which were to remove the timber board, remove all cement pointing and repoint with lime mortar, re-bed all the coping stones, and replace the cement render with a new lime render, with a new brick coping detail at the top edge.  The works that required Listed Building Consent were applied for and approved, and the work carried out by a suitably experienced builder.