The festive season is upon us and following our flurry of activity, we’re getting plastered!
We are very lucky that we found Jeremy Lile, and even luckier that he was happy to help us out with Easterdown. Jeremy is a restoration plasterer. He works mostly on old buildings. Tower of London, Kitchen at Windsor Castle to name but a few.
One of the guiding principles of Easterdown is ‘Reinventing the old in light of the new’. Jeremy has reinvented/reimagined plastering techniques for old buildings based on historic references, but in the knowledge that many of the old techniques have been lost or are impractical, such as plastering by hand with no trowels. The old equipment, the mills for the materials have changed. This changes the nature of the materials and how they can be used.
His plaster, a mixture of Earth, Lime, Hemp and Sand is the result of his years of experimentation to recreate Earth plasters that are sympathetic to old buildings and not impractical to use. He told us that the earth makes the plaster stick to the walls like sh*t to a blanket. We’ll see!
Jeremy arrives.
Starts in on the Earth/lime plaster for the soffits and mesh around the windows (that we installed under his instruction)
This is a slightly different mix because it uses horse hair. The main plaster for the basecoats of the walls will use hemp instead.
Closeup of the hair
A few months ago he arrived with a tipper trailer and dumped a tonne of soil from local Stogumber for me to sieve. Mike has a bad back, so I did all of that myself!
This is Chris with the mix. The white stuff at the front is hemp.
Putting it all on the walls
First coat on. WOW! Doesn’t it look great?
My oh my!
Gorgeous!
The top coat will be white. But this looks amazing!
Getting plastered without fear of morning hangover… blissful, but not sure it will catch on…
Yep! No ‘hair of the dog’ with this stuff, Ramon. (Only the aforementioned horsehair.)