Lindisfarne Priory, Holy Island. Conservation Work
This our finest yet, the works at Lindisfarne Priory involved careful stone removal of Scotch Pointing which is a very hard cement based concrete that consolidates the walls of the Priory.
Behind the scotch pointing in many areas is a hard cement grout which is actually harder than the concrete scotch pointing. Removal of this was a very careful and tedious job; we used drills to drill out the concrete before using tungsten chisels to break it up. Some of the scotch pointing and the cement grout have been consolidated so well it is up to 100mm thick into the wall. Only approximately one square meter a day per mason can be removed due to the hardness of the existing mortar.
Once the cement mortar and grout have been removed we consolidate the wall with a mixture of lime mortar and pinning stones to give the wall and the stones around the wall more stability, the work will dramatically not just improve the appearance but will also preserve the stone units for a lot more years to come.
When working on an English Heritage project minimum intervention is the way forward, you can see this in our mortar repairs to some of the stones, the mortar repair is set back to help preserve the stone unit and it is intended to show that it is in fact a repair and not to create an illusion of a new stone replacement.
It is also a fact that we only decide to replace any new stone if it is of a structural nature or say a cornice or a string course which its purpose is to throw water from the building and protecting the stones underneath it.
Attached are some photos showing mortar repairs to stone units, replacement stone and the stages it undertakes to carve such stone, also note the tooling to the stone.
Created: 06/01/2011 - [Team Force Restoration Ltd © 2012]