Mansfield sits in a basin of magnesian limestone and sandstone ridges, and the council notes that these locally quarried stones form the town's traditional building materials. Mills on the River Maun, framework knitting, quarrying and iron founding all played a part before coal became the main industry for most of the 20th century. Each era left its own kind of house, and each asks something slightly different of a skim.
Arts and Crafts houses in The Park
About half a mile north of the centre, The Park conservation area, designated in 1992, is a late Victorian and Edwardian suburb. Its houses are stone, red brick or both, many in the Arts and Crafts style, and they range from terraces to large detached homes with sash windows and leaded lights. Rooms like these often have original joinery worth keeping, so the skim is worked neatly up to frames and skirtings rather than over them, and window reveals get beads so the edges stay crisp. Before anything else, the old plaster is checked for hollow sections and sealed so the new coat does not dry too fast.
Miners' terraces
Rows of terraced houses built for mine workers still stand in and around the town. They usually have solid walls and a long history of patching. A typical room might have a chimney breast that has been opened up or blocked off with a mess of plaster around it, a ceiling with cracks running across it, or a stair wall scuffed by decades of daily use. The wall is tapped, loose areas are cut out and rebuilt, and the surface is sealed before the finish coat goes on. At Pleasley Hill, where many terraces were demolished in 2012, new houses have since gone up, so the mix there is changing.
Lindhurst, High Oakham Park and the brewery site
At the other end of the scale, the Lindhurst development is planned for 1,700 homes, with more at High Oakham Park, and most of the former Mansfield Brewery site has been redeveloped as housing. In newer homes, skimming is usually about upgrading taped plasterboard to a smooth, solid finish once the house has dried out, or tidying up after a kitchen or bathroom refit.
Whatever the house, the drying rules are the same: plenty of air, no fan heater aimed at the wall, and a watered-down matt emulsion as the first coat once the plaster is evenly pale.
Ring 07877 353120 or use the enquiry form for skimming in Mansfield, Mansfield Woodhouse or Pleasley Hill. We work 7am to 5pm, seven days a week.
