Market Street Tannery, Lewes

The Market Street Tannery ceased operation in 1954 and spent four subsequent decades as a general storage building. By 2024 the current owners wanted to convert it into letting workshops for Lewes craftspeople, retaining the industrial character throughout.

Our work was entirely external — lime mortar repair to the brick, cast-iron window conservation, and a careful clean of the soot-blackened west elevation. The brick is Victorian industrial red, laid in English bond with wide joints, and the mortar had survived remarkably well in the original lime. We repaired only where mortar had actively failed, leaving the patina of 170 years of urban weathering intact on sound joints.

The cast-iron windows — 28 frames in total — were stripped of six layers of modern emulsion and gloss using hand scrapers and careful heat. The underlying iron was in good condition. We finished each frame in three coats of linseed oil paint in a near-black dark grey matching the surviving original trace.