Repointing in Brighouse

Brighouse, Rastrick and Lightcliffe are gritstone — terraces around the town centre and along the Calder and the canal, bigger Victorian houses up in Lightcliffe and Rastrick — and the work is lime. The canal and river side is damp; the lower courses of the older terraces have often been cement-patched repeatedly and want doing properly once.

Rastrick and parts of the town centre are conservation areas. Forty minutes from Rochdale on the M62 and we group Brighouse with Halifax and Huddersfield.

The typical Brighouse job is a full elevation on a canal-side or Bradford Road terrace, raked out by hand, repointed in lime and brushed back so it matches the parts of the street that were never cemented. The bigger houses in Lightcliffe and Hove Edge have carved dressings and deep joints; those want a slightly recessed finish with a matched aggregate. Clifton and the older cottages on the hill are the same stone, older still.