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 | | WHITE PEAK LIMEWASH USED TO FINISH STIRLING CASTLE'S GREAT HALL RESTORATION | | | Buxton Lime Industries | | 17/10/2006 | | |
BY ANY standard, the restoration of the medieval Great Hall at Scotland's Stirling castle is an incredible achievement.
It's a project that has spanned four decades, to recreate a look the designers intended more than 500 years ago - a supreme test for everyone who worked on it.
Among the key suppliers to this historic restoration was Buxton Lime Industries. The company supplied its leading limewash, White Peak, to finish the internal walls of the magnificent Great Hall.
Limewash is one of the earliest forms of paint, used in Britain since Roman times. It provides an inexpensive coating that gives protection and beauty to render, masonry and plasterwork on internal and external walls. As it ages, the limewash develops a patina unrivalled by modern paint, and allows the building fabric to 'breathe'.
BLI's White Peak combines these traditional qualities with the benefits of modern know-how. It's finding a growing market in renovation and conservation work. And Stirling Castle's Great Hall is a prime example of what it can do.
The castle is one of Scotland's most famous landmarks, towering over the countryside for miles around and over centuries of Scottish history.
It was once the home to the Stuart court, before James V1 headed south in 1603 to take the English crown. From the eighteenth century, the military made its home there.
The castle's Great Hall underwent enormous changes. Built in 1503 as a venue for great celebrations and occasions of state, the military put a stop to all that. From the eighteenth century it used the hall for a barracks, dividing the space into three floors with a string of partitions and windows. The army ceased using Stirling Castle as a depot in the 1960s, at which stage the authorities decided to revive the hall's former glory.
Stonemasons gradually repaired the walls and replaced missing architectural details. Eventually, the hall reverted to a vast rectangular space with windows high in the walls, full height bay windows giving light to the dais and high table, a hammerbeam roof, five fireplaces, four spiral staircases, even a trumpeters' loft.
Archaeologists had helped unpick the centuries of alterations. Stripping away brittle cementitious mortars and render, they found remnants of the original lime plaster and limewash. That provided vital evidence of how the building originally looked.
Historic Scotland called in specialists from the Scottish Lime Centre Trust to investigate the original materials and find a suitable match. White Peak met the brief.
It's known as a top class, quality product. BLI's advanced manufacturing produces a limewash of unparalleled performance. The use of ultrafine particles in the mix means maximum coverage and a brilliant rich finish - with minimal stirring. White Peak also has a shorter 'maturing' time and better permeability than conventional limewash. It's consistent in chemical and physical characteristics due to stringent quality assurance. It contains no toxic compounds or solvents. White Peak holds its pigments well, giving greater use of colours. It comes in white or 24 ready-mixed colours. These can be used neat to produce deep and rich historical colours, or they can be used as concentrates to produce more delicate colours when mixed with white.
On Stirling's Great Hall, nine coats of White Peak were applied to build up a delicate vibrant finish. The first five were white. The last four pale ochre. Feature walls in the extensive undercroft were finished in blue limewash, forming an attractive contrast with the pale ochre of the main cellar walls and vaulted ceilings.
Each coat was applied with a brush to a previously cured and re-dampened background and burnished as it started to thicken up.
The limeworks were carried out by the Plaster Restoration Company, with the White Peak limewash and lime plaster supplied by BLI's Scottish Distributor, Masons Mortar of Edinburgh.
The internal limewash is wearing extremely well. The castle received 430,000 visitors last year and all would have passed through the Great Hall. The building is also used for one or two functions a week.
And the restoration of Stirling Castle continues. The focus now is the Royal Palace, once the residence of the Stuart kings and queens of Scotland. One of the earliest renaissance buildings in the country, the palace is being restored internally to its former medieval style, complete with tapestries and decorative detail.
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