STOP! don't strip that...

[Gareth Hughes]

the thing about that though Gareth is if its covered over then it might never be revealed again. so you are conserving it but in a sense that it will never be seen again. but i suppose its better than stripping it out altogether.
a nice castle to visit is chillon castle in Geneve , its very old and very untouched and has a lovely history. Its a long drive to get there though but its well worth it.

1. precisely (and who's to say it will never be seen again? - the people who painted or wallpapered over the earlier decorations thought "that's that")
2. Interesting to take Chillon as an example, at that was one of the main sources for the details of Burgess' restoration of Castell Coch. That scrumpy must be good stuff

 

[robgil]

it is Gareth , i shall set you aside a bottle should you ever be down these parts.
chillon was an awsum castle to visit , we went on an overland trip down to greece a few years back tp test the water to see if we could survive in a landrover for a trip down through africa , the boss hated it! well , she isnt the camping type. Anyhow on our way to venice we kind of went round about and visited geneve before heading east through the alps to the dolomites and then down to venice.
its a fantastic castle to visit , they even let you touch stuff! i even sat on one of their medieval toilets. *


*i didnt poo though.

 

[Penners]

Eat Anglian

I couldn't eat a whole one.

Gareth - although gypsum plaster is a great deal older than we thought it was, what are we to make of its affect on the building? Old or new, I presume it remains a non-breathing surface, with its attendant problems?

I wonder what 17th century gypsum was made of?

Joce - gypsum is a mineral in its own right; a rock (which occurs in several forms). It's mined in several places in this country. I once went down a huge gypsum mine in Robertsbridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsum

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh! I had no idea. I thought you made it with a recipe. Thank you! xxx

 

[robgil]

i have just had a closer look around the cottage and guess what? it used to be blue, blue beams , ceilings , daub infills , everything. blue. in almost every room , or at least every room i can see. there are aslo traces of mustard yellow and upstairs under the blue was mustard yellow on the daub infills.

sky blue and mustard , a lovely combination..

 

[biffvernon]

Joce - gypsum is a mineral in its own right; a rock (which occurs in several forms). It's mined in several places in this country. I once went down a huge gypsum mine in Robertsbridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsum

There's a line of gypsum bearing rock running down the Eastern Midlands from Yorkshire through east Notts into Northants and Leicestershire. Hence the gypsum in 'lime ash' floors in this region.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh, I should have known that. My lime ash floor seems to be a right old mixed bag as well. Thanks Biff!

Rob - how fab is that! Blue and yellow is a gloriously happy combination, it makes me think that whoever lived there at the time of that colour scheme was very jolly indeed.

 

[robgil]

it would have looked brill Joce , i think though the mustard colour was there before the blue so some of the rooms may well have been just blue , walls and ceilings.
a quick google found this..

Blue limewash rarely appears until the Victorian period, following the introduction of the first alkali resistant blue pigment, French ultramarine, in the 1830s. Nevertheless, pigments which were not alkali-resistant such as Prussian blue and indigo were also sometimes used in external limewashes which, in any case, have to be renewed regularly.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Y28Vro0cOdwJ:www.buildingconservation.com/articles/lwdistempers/lwdistempers.htm+blue+limewash&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

 

[lou]

Robgil - thanks for that interesting piece of info re the detergent and the blue in your pics looks just the same colour. I seem to remember my gran having adding what she called 'blue' to the white wash and someone rubbed my tongue with it when I got stung on the tongue by a wasp. I will try and take some pics of the multitude of other colours that appear to have bled through each other making it impossible to determine which is the oldest colour.

 

[Joiner]

http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/gypsum/gypsum.htm

And in the following: how to tell the difference between lime and gypsum plasters…

http://www.mnlath-plaster.com/products/gypsum_plaster.htm

 

[robgil]

you know come to think of it the outside of my house used to be a pale yellow as well , perhaps the owner at that time either liked yellow or simply had loads of yellow paint then the next owner decided to add some blue to try and de-yellow it a bit.