A town that grew quickly
Ilkeston's population rose from under 2,500 in 1801 to over 30,000 by 1911, driven by coal mining, ironworking and lace and hosiery. Local bricks were often made alongside the collieries, and Erewash Council says that local brick accounts for the strong character of the town centre conservation area, which runs along Bath Street and South Street to the Market Place. Wharncliffe Road, a mainly residential part of it, has wider plots and detached buildings.
If your home dates from that boom, it is now more than a century old, and the plaster inside has had a long time to crack, loosen and be patched by previous owners. One common sign is a wall that looks like a map, with old filler of different colours and textures. Each earlier repair may be sound or loose, so they are checked one by one before anything new goes on.
Kirk Hallam and the post-war estates
Kirk Hallam was built up in two main stages. In the 1950s, public housing was built by Ilkeston Corporation and the Stanton and Staveley company around the St Norbert Drive area. In the 1960s and 1970s, mixed public and private housing followed around Godfrey Drive.
Houses of that age usually go through several rounds of updates over the years: new boilers, new kitchens, rewiring and replacement windows. Every one of those jobs tends to leave something for the plasterer. Chases for cables and pipes, the outline of an old boiler flue, damaged reveals around new windows, and patches of ceiling cut out to reach pipework. These are usually tidy, contained repairs, and doing them before decorating means the new paint goes onto a surface without ridges and dips.
Cracks worth a second look
Not every crack is cosmetic. Hairline cracks at the corners of ceilings and above door frames often come from normal seasonal movement and can be cut out and filled. Cracks that are wider than a few millimetres, keep getting bigger, or show on the outside brickwork too, need a surveyor or structural engineer before anyone plasters over them.
If you are not sure which kind you have, send a photo with a coin held next to the crack for scale, and we will tell you what we think.
Booking a repair
Patch Me If You Can covers all of Ilkeston, including Cotmanhay, Larklands, Hallam Fields and Shipley View. Call 07877 353120, or send photos through the enquiry form. We are open every day from 7am to 5pm.
