The Priest House, Midhurst

The Priest House is one of Midhurst's oldest secular buildings, dated by dendrochronology to the 1460s. When the current owners took possession in 2021, the building had been empty for two decades and the roof had let in water at three separate points. Much of the internal lime plaster had fallen away; several of the mediaeval sash windows (a later insertion, probably eighteenth century) were seized shut; and the timber-framed east wall had developed a twenty-millimetre outward lean.

The project ran for fourteen months. The frame was stabilised first — a series of reversible tension ties across the east wall pulled the lean back to within five millimetres. Internal plaster was reapplied in three coats of NHL 2 lime over reed lath, brought in from a single supplier in the Camargue to match the colour and grain of the surviving patches.

All twelve sash windows were removed, dismantled, and restored in our Lewes workshop over four months. Rotten sills were spliced with seasoned oak; sash cords were replaced; glazing bars were hand-planed to match the originals. Every coat of paint is linseed oil — in thirty years it can be scraped back and refreshed without stripping the substrate, as the previous generations of owners did.