2022 · Alfriston, East Sussex
Corn Exchange Cottage, Alfriston
- Client
- Private — owner
- Era
- 16th century
- Listing
- Grade II
- Category
- Lime plaster & render
- Completion
- 2022
- Disciplines
- Wattle and daub · Lime wash mural conservation · Oak frame splicing
Image · Hero · Project 630
A sixteenth-century cottage with a rare surviving lime-wash mural on the main hall wall. The mural was stabilised in situ; the surrounding wattle-and-daub panels were renewed around it without disturbance.
Corn Exchange Cottage contains something unusual — a faint sixteenth-century wall painting in red ochre and carbon black lime wash, depicting a stylised tree and two figures, uncovered in 2015 beneath layers of later paint. The painting is of regional importance and its stabilisation was the central concern of the project.
Working with a conservator from the Courtauld's historic-paint team, we stabilised the mural using a consolidant compatible with lime-wash substrates. The surrounding wattle and daub panels were renewed — the daub mix matched by eye against surviving areas — without any work closer than 40cm to the mural edge. Where panels met the painted area, we left a narrow lime-plaster margin that the conservator finished by hand.
The frame required one modest scarf joint to a post base; the roof and floor were untouched.
Credits
- Project lead
- Dr Eleanor Pelham
- Mural conservation
- Dr Helen Vickery (external)
- Wattle & daub
- Martha Greene, Tom Holloway
- Oak frame
- Ben Fairweather
Next project