A Minster town with a long memory
Southwell is a Minster and market town, and its history is visible everywhere. The Grade I listed Minster is the cathedral of the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, the partly ruined Archbishop's Palace stands behind it, and the historic districts include the Prebendage around the Minster, Burgage around Burgage Green and Hightown along Westgate. The prebendal houses on Church Street and Westgate, Burgage Manor, where Lord Byron stayed from 1803, and the Saracen's Head, built in 1463, show how old some of the town's buildings are. The conservation area was first designated in 1968.
When plasterboard is the wrong answer
In a building of that age, walls and ceilings were made to move with the seasons and let moisture out. Gypsum plasterboard and a modern skim do neither. Fixing board to old solid walls can trap damp, and replacing original lath and lime ceilings in a listed building can need listed building consent from Newark and Sherwood District Council. Small cracks in an old lime ceiling are not always a reason to replace it either; a ceiling that is still firmly keyed can often be repaired and left in place. So in the oldest parts of Southwell, our first job is to look, tell you what we think the ceiling or wall is made of, and be honest when board is not the right material.
Where it fits well
Plenty of Southwell homes are a better fit. A 2022 council review found the conservation area under-represented the town's 19th and early 20th-century architecture and workers' housing, and proposed adding the workers' housing on Dover Street and Chatham Street and the Edwardian villas on Halam Road. Unlisted houses of that era with failing lath and plaster ceilings can usually be overboarded or stripped and reboarded. Overboarding in an Edwardian villa means checking picture rails and any cornice first, so the new surface sits neatly against them. Later homes, extensions, loft rooms and bathroom refits all take plasterboard as a matter of course: moisture-resistant sheets where there is steam, fire-rated board where regulations ask for it, and acoustic board to quieten a bedroom.
Getting in touch
We cover the whole town, from East Thorpe and West Thorpe to the roads out towards Brackenhurst. Phone 07877 353120 or send pictures through the enquiry form, and tell us whether the house is listed. We work seven days a week, 7am to 5pm.
