That sinking feeling

Joe specialises in restoration works on old buildings. At present he is working on an old farm house located a few miles away from Goring, in South Oxfordshire. Here is a snapshot of how things are coming along.

One look at the top-centre of the picture is all it takes to recognise that the building has suffered problems of differential settlement. The whole centre section of the house, which was an extension to the original building, has sunk to an extent equivalent to at least a couple of courses of brickwork.

When looking at how the brickwork has distorted to accommodate the settlement it impossible not to appreciate the forgiving nature of bricks bonded by lime-mortar, hardly a brick was broken by the settlement.

Joe's job was (and is) to bring forth order from this chaos. For example, a raised string course of bricks runs between the upper window and the lower window. The string course and surrounding brickwork had been severely distorted by the settlement (a similar string course runs above the top of the upper window and provides an indication of the degree of settlement). It will be seen that Joe has removed the warped brickwork over the lower window and replaced it, together with a new section of string course. The old string course and the new one have been neatly joined together by a brick on-end. As one who has never been able to think in three dimensions I thought this was clever.

The new bricks used in the restoration works were made by the firm of H.G. Matthews of Bellingdon, Bucks, who, I ought to mention, were kind enough to have me as a guest at their open day at the works last year.
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For the record, Joe Weslowski lives in Reading. His telephone numbers are 0118 959 5340 (home) and 07756 978586 (mobile). His email address is and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

his  web site address is:  

http://www.flintbuilding.co.uk/