Phil Bailey Heritage Plastering: St George in the East

Render repairs at St George in the East

This is the beautiful English Baroque Church of St George in The East .Surprisingly enough in East London .Designed in 1714 by Christopher Wren's famous protege Nicholas Hawksmoor and built by some nameless poor buggers who probably ended up in the workhouse.It is stone built on a grand style with oversize features much like Michelangelo's monumental designs from two centuries earlier ,better late than never.
As in most stone buildings it has a brick /rubble core and much of the inside was constructed with soft red brick at least from what I could see from inside.The interior was destroyed by an incendiary bomb during WW2; you missed that one Mum (She was fire watching during the war when she was 17 My kids are spend most of their time in bed ,don't you love peace time) During the 1950s the external walls were rendered with Portland cement and although still in quite good condition it was probably incompatible with the soft red bricks and original lime mortar.When I opened up some of the cracks in the render the original brickwork was in quite poor condition especially compared to the wall areas which were not rendered..
We decided to make some minor repair to the render, opening and filling some cracks which were probably responsible for some water ingress in the flats below.We used a Roman cement mix because of its ability to breathe, its speed of set and its tenacity.I feel ,as I have said in previous posts that this is a very useful material for repairing and conserving our built heritage
This was a great job ,nice people and it was a privilege working on this building one which I have loved for many years and one which means so much to Londoners.
I don't love working on all jobs some companies are arseholes