DH Painter & Decorator paints house exteriors in Great Doddington, the Nene Valley village between Wellingborough and Earls Barton. Dean travels out from our Northampton base, about 8.3 miles to the east, and quotes for joinery, rooflines and any walls that are already painted after looking at the property.
Stone walls stay bare, so the timber does the work
The historic core of Great Doddington, along Church Lane, Lower Street, Doctors Lane, Chapel Lane and the older part of the High Street, is built of regular coursed limestone with ironstone dressings. Those walls were never meant to carry paint, and an acrylic masonry coating would trap moisture in them. On a cottage in the conservation area, an exterior job is therefore mostly about the woodwork: wooden casements set under timber lintels, front doors and frames, Lincolnshire and gabled dormers with wood-clad cheeks, and bargeboards on the gables.
Several of these houses are listed, from 1 Doctors Lane and 39 Lower Street to the Grade I Old Vicarage on Church Lane. On listed fabric we repaint like for like. If you want a different colour or a different type of paint on a listed window or door, check with North Northamptonshire Council before we order anything. Older joinery here may carry lead-based paint layers, so we scrape and wet-sand by hand. On the thatched pair at 24 and 26 High Street nothing with a flame comes near the building, and that is our rule on every cottage in the village.
Cottages that sit on the High Street footway
A lot of the High Street cottages, including the runs at 20-24 and 80-96, are built hard up to the back of the pavement. There is no front garden to stand a ladder in, so ladder feet and any tower go on the public footway. We keep the footprint tight, put barriers round it while anyone is working above, and clear it when we stop. If scaffold is needed for a two-storey front, it may need a highways licence from the council, and we build that into the timetable.
The village has no rear service lanes behind the High Street. The paths that run behind it go through the churchyard, so back elevations are reached through the house or the garden. On Lower Street and Doctors Lane, stone boundary walls up to about 2.2 metres high stand between the road and some fronts. That limits where kit can be carried and stood, and we check it on the survey visit rather than on the first morning.
Fronts that face the Nene Valley
From its position high on the Nene Valley side, much of Great Doddington looks south and south-east over open ground towards Grendon and Wollaston. Elevations on that side take sun and rain straight off the open valley, and their doors and casements fade and break down sooner than the north-facing ones. When we quote, we look at which way each face points and give the exposed side more attention: more filling of open joints, a full primer on bare timber and an extra finish coat where the old paint has gone chalky. Our guide to timing exterior painting in the UK explains why we book those valley-facing elevations for drier, settled weeks.
Trees make a difference too. Sills and doors near the sycamore in The Square, the yews at the churchyard and the Stag’s Head, and the cedar and pine at 22 High Street collect sap, needles and leaf litter. Expect an extra clean before any sanding starts.
Bungalows and ribbon houses beyond the conservation area
Most of the village outside the historic core is 20th-century ribbon development along the road between Wellingborough and Earls Barton. It includes the 1960s and 70s bungalow scheme at 44-54 High Street and the newer homes at St Nicholas Court. These are ordinary masonry houses, and the full range of exterior work applies to them: fascias and soffits, timber or painted window frames, front doors, garage doors and any rendered panels, all with modern exterior systems.
Barn conversions at Top Farm, Glebe Farm and Grove Farm fall in between. They have tall stone and red-brick walls that we leave unpainted, with large timber openings and boarded doors that need a durable microporous finish. The main exterior painting page sets out how we prepare and which products we use. For the wider picture of how we work in the village, see our Great Doddington area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
