Newark-on-Trent is about 15 miles north-east of Mapperley, one of the furthest towns we cover but still well inside our 30-mile area. It is an old market and river town that grew around its castle and St Mary Magdalene church, expanded in the Victorian era with ironworks, engineering, brewing and sugar refining, and is growing again with new estates at Fernwood and Middlebeck.
Keeping the character of older Newark homes
Newark's conservation area, designated in 1968, was the second ever designated in England. It is now on the national Heritage at Risk Register, partly because of vacant historic buildings and lost architectural detail. That second point is worth bearing in mind indoors too. When an older room is replastered, original features such as cornices, ceiling roses and picture rails are easily lost. They do not have to be. A ceiling can be skimmed up to an original cornice, and walls can be plastered around a picture rail rather than having it ripped out for convenience.
Late-Victorian and Edwardian streets
A 2022 council review proposed adding three groups of older housing to the conservation area: the late-Victorian and Edwardian planned streets around the Magnus School, including Hatton Gardens, Winchilsea Avenue and Milner Street; the 19th-century houses on Crown Street; and the late-Victorian and early-20th-century houses on Lime Grove. Homes like these generally have solid brick walls and lath and plaster ceilings. Typical jobs are cracked and sagging ceilings, blown plaster behind old wallpaper, and stairwells and landings marked by decades of use. Each needs the loose material removed and the surface rebuilt before a finish coat, or the cracks come straight back.
Chimney breasts in houses of this age often need attention too. Where a fireplace has been taken out, the opening is filled and plastered flush, and stains from old soot or salts are dealt with before the finish so they do not bleed through fresh paint.
Fernwood, Middlebeck and Balderton
Newark forms one built-up area with Balderton, and new homes have gone up at Fernwood, at the Middlebeck development on the town's southern edge and on the former Balderton Hospital site. Owners of new houses usually want plastering for one of three reasons: fine cracks after the first year or two, a skim to give dry-lined walls a harder finish, or making good after changes such as a new kitchen, an opened-up room or extra sockets.
If you are in Newark or Balderton, call 07877 353120 or use the enquiry form with a few photos of the rooms. We work seven days a week, 7am to 5pm.
