Bricklaying in Morpeth

Everything from stone built town centre properties around Bridge Street and Newgate Street through to later estates at Stobhill, Lancaster Park and Loansdean. Which of those you have changes the method more than the postcode does, which is why we look before we quote.

Yes, including the foundation, the pier itself, any built in ducting for gate motors and the capping on top.

Yes. A wall without an adequate foundation will move, and on clay ground it will move noticeably within a couple of winters. The foundation depth depends on the wall height and the ground it is sitting on.

It depends on the address. The Morpeth conservation area covers much of the historic centre and there are a large number of listed buildings within it, so stone type and mortar mix are decisions the county council will take an interest in rather than details you can leave to the day. We check the designation before any design work goes far enough to be expensive to change.

It is Northumberland County Council. People sometimes send paperwork to a neighbouring authority because of the postal address or the historic county, and that costs time rather than money. For bricklaying you will need boundary wall height rules and, in conservation areas, mortar and joint specification.

Because a mortar stronger than the brick pushes moisture and movement into the brick face instead of the joint, which is what causes spalling on older property. On a soft older brick a lime based or weaker mix is usually the correct answer even though a strong cement mix looks tidier on day one.

We take a sample and source the closest available match before ordering. On Victorian and Edwardian property an exact match is rarely available, so the joint profile and mortar colour do a lot of the work in making the new blend with the old.

We do. Bedlington, Ponteland, Blyth are all within our normal working area for bricklaying, as is most of Tyne and Wear, County Durham and south east Northumberland.

As a general rule a wall up to two metres is permitted, dropping to one metre where it adjoins a highway used by vehicles or a footpath beside one. Different limits apply to listed buildings and some conservation areas, so it is worth confirming before the foundation goes in.

Yes, and it is worth knowing early. Morpeth sits north of the main worked coalfield, so the bigger ground question here is usually river level rather than mining, and low lying plots near the Wansbeck can need finished floor levels and drainage thought through early. Where that applies we say so before you commit, not once the trench is open.