2023 · Lewes, East Sussex
Tanner's Cottage, Lewes
- Client
- Private — owner
- Era
- 16th century
- Listing
- Grade II*
- Category
- Lime plaster & render
- Completion
- 2023
- Disciplines
- Wattle and daub · Internal lime plaster · Original beam stabilisation
Image · Hero · Project 694
Grade II* mediaeval wattle-and-daub panels re-made on-site using traditional hazel withies and local daub mix. The original sixteenth-century oak ceiling beams were retained throughout — nothing replaced, only stabilised.
Tanner's Cottage sits behind Lewes High Street and has been a dwelling continuously since the 1540s. Its most recent owners inherited a building with eight separate wattle-and-daub panels that had failed due to a combination of damp, insect damage, and a well-meaning 1970s attempt to seal them with gypsum plaster.
We stripped each panel back to the original oak lath structure, recovered what hazel withies we could, and cut fresh local hazel for the rest. The daub mix — clay, straw, cow manure, water — was blended to match the surviving panels' colour and texture by eye. Drying took eight weeks in the summer heat.
The original Grade II* oak beams were untouched except for two structural stabilisations where hidden post bases had rotted. Both were treated with reversible steel strapping wrapped in oak facings, designed to be removed in fifty years if a future conservator finds a better method.
Credits
- Project lead
- Martha Greene
- Wattle & daub
- Martha Greene, Tom Holloway, Ben Fairweather
- Structural
- Ashford & Grey Structural
- Heritage consent
- Lewes District Council Conservation
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