Historic brickwork repointing training

With supporting funding from Land of the Fanns, Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT) organised a course that introduced volunteers  to brickwork repair of older structures. The nine volunteers were from the EWT’s Warley Place nature reserve and Upminster Windmill. Expert tuition was provided by the very experienced ‘Mac’ from Place Services, Essex CC. He enlightened us to the enduring benefits of lime mortar, correct mortar mix and its application, all with a few anecdotes thrown in. We had extensive hands on involvement in partly rebuilding one of the dilapidated cold frames at Warley Place. After two days everyone went home happy having learnt a great deal and enthusiastic about having learnt a new skill and being eager to use it.

Debbie Brady, Heritage Engagement Office at Land of the Fanns said, “this is exactly the sort of training and learning of new skills that we like to promote in the Land of the Fanns project.  The participants can go on to use their new skills on real life historic projects such as the newly built windmill in Upminster and the cold frames at Warley Place in Brentwood”.

Mick Hedges

Essex Wildlife Trust