Nestled within the historic Barbican, No7 Parade Ope is situated around Sutton harbour, the original harbour of Plymouth. The building itself was a merchant’s house back in the 1600’s and then extended in the 1840’s to be used as a warehouse. Today the ground floor is shared by a few small local businesses whilst flats occupy the upper floors. It has been designated as a Grade II listed building by English Heritage.

Having been contacted by the owner we were asked to carry out some re-pointing and remedial works to the stonework on one of the elevations at ground level. The elevation in question was built in random rubble using local Plymouth limestone. Obviously this external wall, was once an internal wall showing the original 17th century fireplaces that had once served the rooms of a building long since demolished, along with a mixture of various repairs that had been carried out in red brick. The pointing to this elevation in general was in pretty good condition, but a few areas at ground level were in need of our attention. These were raked out and prepared for re-pointing.

Once all the preparation work had been carried out it was then re-pointed using a traditional historic lime mortar.

One of the brick arches over a fireplace had some loose bricks.

These were taken out, cleaned up and built back in again.

After the arch was sorted out, the arch and surrounding stonework was completely re-pointed using the lime mortar.

The original 17th century fire surrounds are cut and dressed from Dartmoor granite.

The mortar consisted of two and a half parts of coarse sharp sand and one part NHL3.5 lime. Once dried out the colour matches in well with the existing.

The Barbican has the largest concentration of cobbled streets in Great Britain and contains over one hundred Grade listed buildings.