Rendering/Painting brick buildings in the UK

[kandc_au]

I was going to add this question to Chubbers thread of the Scalescenes T19 Cottages, but then thought I would ask seperately.

When did they start to render and/or paint brick buildings white in the UK?

 

TIA

Khris

[Chubber]

Hullo Khris,

'

My copy of 'Houses of Britain' by John Prizeman gives a typical recipe of 1356 consisting of 'chalk dust mixed with size made from strips of boiled leather', milk was also used as binder and was technically a ' lime wash tempera distemper'.

 

Given that most early buildings were mud based it served as much as a protective coating as decoration.

 

Earth hues mixed with bullocks blood came next, 'still in use in the 19C..' and an English recipe of 1875 consisted of '...half a bushel of lime, one pound of common salt, half-a-pound of sulphate of zinc and one gallon of milk'.

 

Now we know of course that it was the casien in milk, a sort of plastic component that helped the longevity, although bi-annual re coating was apparently necessary.

 

Wide eaves protected the walls before guttering was commonly and more cheaply available, the lower parts of the walls being rendered in Roman cement type coatings which in turn were bitumen coated to shed ground splashes. Tar to make these waterproof coatings was expensive, and generally imported from Baltic regions, I do not know of any British sources of bitumen [?]

 

Herewith a picture of yours truly at an ochre mine in Provence in 2009, these earth tints were exported to Britain for years until the Napoleonic Wars knocked the trade on the head.

 

There, now you know as much as I do [precious little ] and to sum-up, it looks like painting yer 'ouse has gone on a long time!

 

Doug

 

 

 

[kandc_au]

Love the colours on that cliff face!

Thanks for the info Doug.

 

Khris