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Originally part of Jack in The Green in Devon, Helen Evans and David Tyler operate now from southern Cumbria. We are commited to ethical conservation building and now offer our traditional building and lime plastering skills in Cumbria.

....repair and renovate old buildings such as town houses, cottages, country houses, barns and other vernacular structures using traditional methods and materials. We work with lime plasters, renders and mortars, and together with traditional wooden lath we use green environmentally friendly materials such as hemp plaster, clay and reed boards, clay paints and limewashes.

Almost any building built in both town and country before 1914 incorporates lime in its construction. Lime mortars, plasters and renders hold historic buildings together. They provide protection for the stone and brick walls from which they are built, as well providing flat surfaces for decoration. Walls comprising timber studwork, lath and lime plaster often also form internal divisions within older buildings and contrary to popular belief, these can be sympathetically repaired or renewed.

Lime is historically appropriate to many older buildings and authenticity is key when restoring them, for instance when repairing damage from damp or other maintenance problems, dealing with the results of ‘bodge jobs’ done in recent decades, or patching in after electrical and other work (see our plasterwork repair page). Contrary to what modern builders might tell you, used sympathetically and appropriately, lime lends itself extremely well to repairs.

we will undertake:

• Lime plastering, rendering, repointing etc-See our lime plastering page and our lime pointing page for more details. We also work with hemp insulating plasters.
• Lime plaster repairs including repairs and to lath and lime studwork walls.
• Carpentry in green oak and softwoods.
• Cob/clay building, mud mortars etc. See our cob page for more details.
• Painting of interior and exterior walls and woodwork with ecologically friendly paints and limewashes

For further details of our work, please use the links at the bottom and top of this page to browse our website. Also, our suppliers and links page details useful books, materials suppliers and provides links to traditional and green building organisations.