Dean paints the outside of houses in Collingtree, NN4, a stone village wedged between the M1 and the golf course, 3 miles south of the town centre. On the conservation-area High Street that mostly means sashes, casements, doors and bargeboards, while at Collingtree Park it means bigger modern elevations near trees and the golf course.
Two very different places under one name
Collingtree splits neatly in two, and the exterior work splits with it. The historic part is one street of limestone and ironstone houses, most of them older than 1875, running from St Columba’s Church down towards the footpath to Blisworth. North of it, on the land of the demolished Collingtree Grange, sit the golf course and the large modern houses of Collingtree Park. A quote for a cottage at one end has almost nothing in common with a quote for a detached house off Windingbrook Lane, so we treat them as separate jobs from the first visit. The wider picture of the parish is on our Collingtree area page.
On the stone houses, the walls themselves are rarely the job. Bare rubble and ashlar should stay bare, so the paint goes on timber: windows, doors, dormers, porches and bargeboards. On the estate houses, walls, roofline, doors and garden timber can all be in scope.
Joinery on the listed High Street houses
Ten listed buildings sit inside the Collingtree Conservation Area, and their joinery is varied. The listings describe stone-mullioned leaded casements at Holmwood, 43 High Street, octagonal glazing bars at Rose Cottage, 19th-century sashes at 44 High Street, and four-pane sashes with pedimented dormers at The Rectory, along with a six-panel door under a fanlight. Each needs something slightly different:
- Leaded and octagonal-bar casements need slow, careful cutting-in, and old timber often takes a traditional linseed or oil-based paint better than a modern system.
- Sashes are eased, failed paint is stripped back and the sashes are repainted so they still slide, not sealed shut.
- Period front doors are finished by brush in a heritage colour rather than sprayed.
Changing the colour or material of anything on a listed building may need listed building consent, so if you are thinking of a new door colour rather than a like-for-like repaint, check with West Northamptonshire Council before we book the work.
Thatch, slate and the eaves
The Wooden Walls of Old England pub is thatched, and 4 and 6 Barn Corner were thatched before they were pantiled. Where we paint near thatch, the eaves are sheeted and protected, and there is no open-flame paint stripping anywhere near it. Heat guns are kept well away too. Under the Welsh slate roofs elsewhere on the street, stone-coped gables mean the roofline timber is usually a bargeboard or a dormer cheek, which needs a tower rather than a ladder leant against old stone.
Larger elevations at Collingtree Park
The houses beside the Johnny Miller-designed course are a different scale. Bigger elevations, longer rooflines and more garden timber all add up, and the setting brings its own wear. Mature trees and golf-side plots mean shade, leaf litter and green algae on the north-facing sides, while traffic on the M1 and the A45 leaves a film of grime. Everything is washed down, and growth is treated and left to work, before any coat goes on. The golf club house trees are protected by a Tree Preservation Order, which means towers and sheeting are positioned clear of their roots and branches.
Getting in and out of a closed-off street
With the motorway across its southern end and the old Grange grounds closing the northern one, the High Street carries no through traffic. Its limestone garden walls and the listed houses standing close to the road leave few spots for a van or the foot of a tower, so we walk the frontage with you and fix both before day one. Collingtree Park is easier to reach, but it only has four ways in and out via Windingbrook Lane and Rowtree Road from East Hunsbury, so deliveries are timed to suit.
We cover Collingtree from our Northampton base. For the full method, from survey to final walk round, see our exterior painting service, and for timing, our guide on when to book exterior painting in the UK.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
