Always nice to see really good workmanship and also nice when it is on public view.
Here is some really good stone facing on a property extension on the fell side above Grasmere by Paul Dixon Ltd a local builder with whom I do a lot of work.
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| rubble stone facing with hand dressed greenslate quoins |
Note the quoin (corner) stones. What was once the result of using a quarry by-product from slate manufacture now takes time and skill to reproduce as the quarries mostly saw up stone giving a smooth face which is useless to match original walling - and even if quoins are ordered from the quarry, the exposed narrow ends are still sawn and too often builders use a stone saw to put a series of parallel cuts across these end faces to remove the smoothness, however here it has been done by hand with care so that the effect is more like the natural riven finish.
The stone itself has a lot of 'cobbles' (field stones) which matches nearby walling.
Many old field barns and outbuildings are built of stone, found to hand from clearing fields whereas houses used more angular slate quarry waste for general walling which locally has an angled natural bed so that by laying the stones 'watershot' (sloping up slightly) from out to in direction in the wall, makes the front faces of the stones vertical.
Note that there is no mortar showing on the face of the stonework - and pointing is never done on walling here, except as a last resort against driving rain penetration (and even then it is seldom successful, hence the prevalence of roughcast or rendered finishes on some elevations of local properties).
