Pleased with works!

[plasticpigeon]

It is going to look splendid. I don't know much about houses of the age of yours, but are real ashlar blocks usually of even or uneven course height?

 

[LadyArowana]

Joce has seen this picture already in the "other place" ( where the discussion wandered off to be largely about custard ) but for the folks here that were not privy to that conversation I will share one of my frontage :wink: I had never looked closely at the blocks before, but seems we are uneven, building was constructed 1767 IIRC

 

[JoceAndChris]

I love that. The differently heighted courses look lovely to my eye - what a beautiful house you have milady. I'm strongly leaning towards letting Phil do as he likes, even though Chris, Dr C, Gareth, Robin and my gardener don't agree and are wanting the same height in courses. It is a hard decision as once it's done it can never be undone. The other issue is scored keystones above the windows on the front. The plasterers have got their heart set on these and when I said Gareth said this was a feature of earlier Georgian buildings and not Regency ones, their faces fell and there was some grumbling about architects, and they said when Phil the head plasterer got back he would have strong views on these keystones that could not be gone against. All very tricky.

Thanks Joss for your kind words! I can visualise the house in Naples, it's a very close match to the underlying stone. But visualising the blocks is hard. Maybe I should get drawing.

Today the exterior emulsion arrives for the little cement outshot on the north side ( we didn't have this lime rendered as the plan is to knock it down one day) I'll be painting it this week, weather permitting, and then as a trial will draw on lines in a trompe l'oeil effect - that might give me a better idea.

 

[plasticpigeon]

This is a very interesting book if you haven't seen it. There may be a design in there similar to your cottage. Just post regency I know, but not far off! In fact the first edition is from 1834 so maybe about right. Perhaps you can determine the window treatment from this or other literature contemporary to the build of you house.

https://archive.org/details/encyclopdiaofc00loud

 

[JoceAndChris]

That is such an interesting book plastic - thanks! I had come across it before, and indeed, own a couple of similar pattern books - they were as avidly studied by the home owners of the day as " Home and Gardens" or "Grand Designs " is today! But it's very timely to revisit that one, and lovely to see so many versions of BC in that.

There's a very rousing cry in that to do something with your boring rendered walls, and even a suggestion an artist may be employed to draw on circles or squares or imitation wickerwork, or in fact apposite quotations and mottoes.

"Let our readers never forget that the outside of a house, or a wall of any kind, covered in every part with roughcast, or with plaster ornamented in any way, except being lined and coloured in imitation of stone, is a mere blank or negation in Architecture. Such a wall has no beauty, because it has no expression."

There are detailed instructions to really imitate the building process of the house in the plaster work:

"The object of covering the outside of the walls of cottages with cement is generally to imitate stone, in this imitation, care must be taken that the lines drawn do not represent stones of too large a size, the at the shapes of the stones at the corners, and for the lintels and sills of the doors and windows, be suited to their situation and uses, and that, in the regular courses, the joints alternate and show bond properly, as to regularly built stone buildings. A dwelling with the walls of brick will be much improved in appearance by forming the string courses, the facings or the architraves to doors and windows, the corner stones, the cornices, the tablings and especially the chimney tops, of cement in imitation of stone."

As to whether the block size should be identical all over he doesn't say. But there are great pains to describe how the colouring imitating stone may be achieved, and so my interpretation is that the main aim is to look as closely like ashlar as possible. I will also have to get Phil back to render the chimney pots.

 

[Penners]

for the folks here that were not privy to that conversation I will share one of my frontage

I can hardly wait! Will you post the picture on this thread, or start a separate one?

 

[Penners]

Joce - having thought about your dilemma, I have one of my usual pragmatic suggestions. Whether you score for even "blocks" or uneven, I don't think one person in a thousand will notice the difference. Of course I understand that you will - at first anyway - but I venture to suggest that after a while it will become unimportant even to you and Chris, too. The ashlar will simply be as it is, and will reinforce the Georgian-ness of the house.

But, if forced to choose, I think I would go for uneven blocks. BC is in a rural setting, whereas Nigel's house is in a much more formal, urban environment. I suspect that, were your house actually to have been built from blocks, they would have been prepared on a "whatever is available" sort of basis. Thus, it's probably more likely that the sizes would have been random.

Whatever you do, don't take that as any kind of expert view. It's just amateur musings!

 

[JoceAndChris]

As always, excellent musings Mr P, well said. I so agree.

I'm leaning towards uneven, with differently heighted courses.

I'm also thinking it's a chance to inscribe a motto above the door.

 

[LadyArowana]

I'm also thinking it's a chance to inscribe a motto above the door.

Oooooooh YESSSSSSSSSS

So many possibilities, amor vincit omnia ? Love conquers all, arte et labore By art and by labour

 

[Moo]

What fun!
I can't wait for the deluge when the PPUK floodgates of erudition are opened and the usual suspects surge through.
xx

 

[Penners]

Nil carborundum illegitimae terra firma.

 

[DJH]

I always reckon that if you want something irregular then you should set out the irregularity yourself. One persons irregularity is not always to someone else's liking... 8)

I'd plump for regular sizes and although agreeing with Penners ( :shock: ) I can see the opposite in that being low walls the chances of building with regular ashlar are improved as there would have been less stones to dress.

Careful consideration should be given to the fenestration so that your stuck lines met up neatly as it's easy to mess up the joint sizes when trying coincide with cills and lintels. Keystones on your windows? Hmm. Not sure about that one.

Et tu brute? Maybe Lady A's frontage? Where's Lilias...

Doug

 

[DJH]

Annuit Coeptis...

 

[JoceAndChris]

I like annuit coeptis - I hope BC really does approve. Thanks Doug! Like the one about the bastards not getting you down as well!

Quite a lot of irregular ashlar round here- but it's all very arbitrary isn't it? I agree it should line up, and they intend to line the sides and back to match the front so continuous courses can be seen at all angles.

Other Latin thoughts - "Nec aspera terrent" (Difficulties be damned) and "Vivat, Crescat, Floreat" (Live, grow, flourish)

 

[DJH]

acta est fabula...

 

[DJH]

a capite ad calcem ?

 

[Feltwell]

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana" perhaps?

(If anyone on here can put that into Latin it will look a lot classier, and will confuse the living daylights out of the equivalent of Time Team in a few thousand years). :wink: :roll:

 

[Gareth Hughes]

ore stabit fortis arare placet o restat
ventosa vere re stabit

and regular blocks.

 

[a twig]

"Si non operandum est, cum malleo percute" is my motto

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Joce will understand this, others may not, though it's not Latin it is site-specific

Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Ely’s stately fane,
And tower and hamlet rose in arms o’er all the boundless plain;
Till Belvoir’s lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent,
And Lincoln sped the message on o’er the wide vale of Trent