Oh for a B&Q said the 17thC artisan

[Anonymous]

Oh for a time machine. People on this site talk about lime renders, plasters, lime wash and distemper as if they are the most revolutionary forgotten magical materials of our ancestors. From historic research of domestic life in houses and cottages through time, it is quite clear that the people who built your period properties where often the peasant farmers or artisans that where to be tenanted in them. Unlike the royals and landed gentry that lived in the palaces and manor houses, they built there hovels from the materials around them, they used the clay, straw, cow muck and wood to hand, correct material or technique were not fully understood, they learnt by trial and error and did not ponder understand or care about the breathability of the materials or worry about the existence of rising damp they just wished to be warm and dry, which they never were. These ancient hovels have survived because subsequent generations have refurbished or renovated them over different historic periods. In the true vernacular condition to which you all aspire accurate historic evidence tells us that these homes were cold damp mouldy smoke filled rat and insect infested places, the original tenants for the most part had very short and hard lives. The breathabillity of the building material that you all champion did nothing to combat the damp and mould, infact quite the reverse occurred. Only the advent of central heating and modern affordable building materials brought about improvement in living conditions, coupled with regular general upkeep, which regardless of materials has made the old houses liveable. For example today in a typical 17th C cottage the small amount of damp we now experience would not even be acknowledged as a problem by the original occupants they would find modern living standards unbelievable and simply be amazed that the cottage was still standing. The original materials of these properties will eventually fail not due to modern repair but simply due to age, nothing lasts forever.

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting, but I'd consider that anyone who can't spell Professor isn't one!

 

[Anonymous]

My fingerrs happear to to to have a st stutter

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting, but what exactly was the point of that peroration?
if it's that everything has a finite life, certainly. Nothing lasts forever. The problem is, as I found by talking to a builder recently, is that modern things last a lot less longer than old.
The average estate house today has a built life of 40 years. In other words, the children of the people moving in today will not be able to pass on the houses to their children without major renovation work. Using materials that contribute to the damage already being inflicted on our environment.
Their great-grandparents' house, however, was built before ideas like 'working life spans' and 'planned obsolescene' were the vogue. Yes, they were built of the materials to hand (much like the posher houses), and yes they needed to be patched and maintained, but they are still standing today and, with care and attention, will stand for many years yet. What's more, the materials and techniques required to maintain them will not damage the environment nearly as much as the cocktail of chemicals required to keep the Barratt shoebox in good fettle.
And, surprisingly, there were warm and comfortable. Occupation levels may have been higher than today - few of us have seven or eight kids in a small cottage, but life was not as grim as you paint it. Read Defoe and Cobbett to get a picture of the reality of rural life since the early 18th century. Economically life was often hard, but for most in rural communities, accommodation was sound. Industrialisation and the mushrooming of urban living brought its problems, for sure, but I don't think many of us here are bent on preserving the Rookeries and the tenements.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd also suggest that many problems now experienced in older properties can be laid at the door of neglect and inappropriate use of 'modern' materials to repair (or bodge).

Let a home breathe, use appropriate materials and methods which show an understanding of traditional construction, keep it warm and well maintained, and all will usually be well.

As for dying young - the first occupants of my house are in the churchyard in Haltwhistle, along with three of their family.

The parents lived until they were well into their eighties, one child died aged twelve, another aged fourteen, and the eldest son aged twenty six. I haven't yet delved into causes of death, but I suspect they had little to do with the house and its construction - which has stood up well to over two hundred years of whatever life threw at it, until some people thought that 'modernising' it was A Good Thing. Thankfully not too much of that took place and it's mostly reversible.

The rest of the children by the way continued to live here. A son died in his fifties (heart problems I recall) and his three sisters lived until they were in their nineties. The last of them died aged 99, having outlived them all by a decade.

That's despite having lime plaster (still doing its job in the main) no running water and no gas or electricity.

 

[Anonymous]

Some basic primers for the uninitiated - click on the titles to get each article.

Note the qualifications of the author of the technical adice, and consider he has drawn on a great deal of other and wider expertise when writing these.

The conservation advice sheets are also worth reading.



Technical advice and conservation advice

 

[Anonymous]

This is worth reading too...



Look Before You Leap

 

[Anonymous]

Dear mr Plum,

I went for a walk a few days ago, and whilst having a rest on a motorway bridge, I started staring down onto the fast moving traffic.
My mind went into overdrive trying to make sense of it all; Why so many cars?; Why so fast?; What are we chasing?; What will we do once we get there?; Do we have to repeat the process,only a bit faster?; when will it stop?, and so on..

Having read your views mr Professor, It has just dawned on me that all those cars were driven by lots and lots of Mr Plum's.
It is inevitable that one day the human race will cease to exist . It is my opinion that with so many mr "plum" guiding it, that day will be severely shortened .

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting, however for example our ancestors 300 or more years ago did not embark upon the construction of his cottage with the aim of minimal environmental impact, they simply did the best job they could but are unlikely to have expected there labours to survive the centauries. The survival of the buildings was a happy accident, due to the properties of the materials that they used out of necessity and not design.
Central heating (what did the Romans ever do for us) is a historically recent innovation and not native to our vernacular structures. For instance a 17th C cottage with a beaten earth floor, timber frame / wattle and daub walls one central chimney and thatch roof would in the 17th C have been continuously damp, the heat of the fire combined with the then level of occupational condensation from sweat washing cooking logically lead to a high level of moister, there was a high level of grime / mould woodworm etc present, the buildings were in a constant state of repair, as the materials used in there construction could not stand up to these conditions. Continual patching up allowed the buildings to survive. The introduction of some modern materials and modern central heating has vastly improved living conditions, the buildings are considerably drier know than they were and given regular maintenance with both traditional and modern material will continue to be.
The atmospheric condition created by modern living are completely in contrast with past, whilst due to there natural materials they have survived symbiotically with damp and insect infestation in the past, how well will they fair with the current drier environment? Perhaps some modern materials are permissible and may even aid the survival of period property given the modern environment. Only a few centuries can really answer this.

 

[Anonymous]

Gervase, have you gone Native or something??

I do not understand the point either.

This is because I do not understand " PERORATIVE".

Stick to simple mother tongue language, in my case is difficult already as it is.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I blame the dog. He's picked up all sorts of fancy Welsh ways with words and now fancies himself as Richard Burton or Anthony Hopkins. It must be rubbing off!

 

[Anonymous]

Well - true - but no-one here is trying to recreate the living conditions of the past, but trying to retain those aspects of a period building which they may find aesthetically pleasing, have historic interest, and using materials which have proved to have less environmental impact and are in the long term better for many buildings. Certain modern inventions such as running water, indoor sanitation, central heating and electricity can be introduced successfully into such buildings and are quite useful at times.

Other things are not so successful: modern Portland cement pointing for example is damaging on stone and soft brick. As render on timber framing it is a disaster. Chemical injection damproofing is not required in so many cases, and not terribly effective either. Hard gypsum plasters do not move with a building and can crack.

It's cheaper to repair what you have than replace so often.

It's up to individuals of course if they wish to b*gger up their historic homes (unless listed) and make them unto pseudo Barrat boxes, uPVC windows and all, with all wobbles, charm and history removed; personally I wouldn't buy such a house, and I'd try to persuade its owner to step back and consider before doing such a thing.

May as well take a Black and Decker to an antique table and then give it a coat of polyurethane.

 

[Anonymous]

That explains it all. Thanks

Send him to a proper school, (unlike me)

 

[Anonymous]

Cooking and water heating was done over and around a fire - the chimney is quite an efficient extractor of any steam produced. The chimney also provided a source of heating. Our ancestors didn't totally freeze.

Washing was often carried on outside, or in an outhouse, and our ancestors certainly wouldn't have washed themselves or clothing as much as we do. They tended not to go in for long soaks in the bath or hot showers pouring steam everywhere.

Condensation from breathing - again, open chimneys and a fire burning help. Still do, actually. As do windows which are not hermetically sealed.

Of course many of our very basic vernacular buildings have long since disappeared either because they were made of mud and straw and therefore abandoned when something else came along, such as Inclosure Acts which drove the poorest off the land and into towns to scratch a living, or because over time they were rebuilt into something a little more substantial. Several houses in my village were rebuilt by the Lord of the Manor in the early 19th century, although other older ones survive, possibly as they were built to withstand raids by Border Reivers and so the weather also was resisted.

Stone, lime mortar and stone roofing has proved durable. Heather thatch and mud have not. It's important though to retain the few examples we have left of our ancient buildings, hence our sytem of listing to try to prevent philistine owners and developers from wiping out our past.

Limewash was used to kill off spores of mould and it's quite effective at resisting insects too.

It wasn't all squalor.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree, many people in the past would have had a cosy(ish) life in there cottages, but it is easy to get trapped into the romantic illusion of country life that the Victorians aspired too. As you may have all guessed I live in a 17thC cottage, it has rather more modern material than I would desire but it is in a good state of repair and damp isnt an issue. I have very limited means so in the spirit of William Morris I mend and make do. Surfice to say gutting the old place back to fully original is beyound my purse, still thats life...must go the fire needs another log, pleasure passing the time with you all, such passion is refreshing

 

[Anonymous]

Although romantic 19th century pictures such as those by Helen Allingham et al of rural idylls are charming indeed, I suspect in many cases that those hollyhocks would more likely have been cabbages and the pig was being stuck round the rear of the property, next to the outside privy, watched by several enthralled little boys... the blood would have made pudding, the bacon cured and hung out of the way of mice... all used apart from the squeal as they say.

A bladder for a good game of football...

Even Jane Austen's mother, when at Chawton, kept and dug her own veggie plot - very proud of her potatoes I understand.

Life was hard for the very poor, but not so hard for all.

 

[Anonymous]

Life was hard for the very poor, but not so hard for all.

The Majority were the very poor. Our forbears where clearly far hardier, there lives would be a shock to us but we could learn a lot from them.

 

[Anonymous]

I doubt there are many around now, who would or could have born our mothers burdens of even fifty years ago.

These days, I know of someone who has actually used a mechanical 'cement mixer' to knock up a small batch of pug would you believe!

Lets face it, we have been going backwards since the march of time leapt forward . .

I blame the chip!

The silicon chip, the oven chip, the MFI wood chip, the fish n chip, the casino chip (benefit system), the golf chip, & most of all the 'shoulder chip'.

Grimmers

 

[Anonymous]

I did't know there were so many chips Grimmers ?
I suppose that's what you get, if you ask from
a "chip off the old block".

 

[Anonymous]

Dear Professor Plum,

The delightful photograph Mrs Plum at home is certainly a vindication of the view that life was better before B&Q.

When you say "...Surfice to say gutting the old place back to fully original ..." are the idiosyncratic spellings typographical errors or Freudian slips.

P.S. their, not there.

P.P.S. Why do we hear so little from the Mr and Mrs P. Edant these days?