DH Painter & Decorator takes on commercial painting in Great Houghton, a village about 2.7 miles south-east of Northampton town centre. With no shops in the village, that means the two listed pubs, the village hall and the church, and Dean quotes for free.
A village with no shops but two very old inns
Great Houghton’s old village shop no longer trades, so commercial painting here looks unusual. The premises are the White Hart Inn on High Street, which the parish dates to 1715, and The Old Cherry Tree Inn at The Cross, dated by the parish to 1695. Both are Grade II listed. Add the John Parsons Memorial Hall on Leys Lane and the Grade II* Church of St Mary Blessed Virgin, and that is most of the non-domestic building stock in the village itself. Brackmills Industrial Estate lies in the western part of the parish, screened from the houses by Brackmills Woods, but it is a different kind of site from anything in the village.
Listed pubs: consent first, then colour
Any change to the external colours or finishes on a listed inn needs listed building consent before work starts. Repainting in the existing scheme is the usual starting point, and we check the position with you before suggesting anything different. Inside, old pub interiors often have the same features as the village’s 17th-century houses: uneven lime plaster, beams and old joinery that won’t take modern sealing paints well. That shapes our choices:
- Breathable paints on lime plaster and old stone, not acrylic masonry or vinyl emulsion.
- Hard-wearing, wipeable finishes on bar fronts, corridors and toilets, where scuffs and cleaning are constant.
- Repair and repainting of original timber windows and doors, in line with the Neighbourhood Plan’s expectation that they are kept.
- No heat guns or open-flame stripping anywhere near a thatched roof or old dry timber.
A pub can’t close for a fortnight while the bar is painted. We split the work into zones and leave each area dry and tidy for service. Outside, the work is planned around the busier times of day.
The village hall and the church
The John Parsons Memorial Hall sits by the playing field used for cricket, football and tennis. Halls like this get heavy wear from sports changing, parties and meetings, so durable, scrubbable wall finishes make sense and tough paint on doors and skirtings. Work is booked around the hall diary, often in quieter weeks.
The church, rebuilt in 1754 in ironstone ashlar with a limestone tower stage, is Grade II* listed, and any painting there goes through the church’s own approval process as well as heritage checks. Interior redecoration or joinery work is possible, but the people responsible for the building need to confirm what is permitted first.
Exposure, trees and outdoor timing
The village sits on a hill that rises to 326 ft, so the weather-facing sides of the inns and the hall take more wind and rain than buildings down in the valley. Window joinery and doors on those faces tend to fail first and get a durable gloss or microporous system after proper preparation. Mature trees around the old core shade some walls and drop leaves and sap, so we wash down and treat mould before any outdoor coat and keep the exterior work to dry spells in the warmer months.
Working safely on High Street and The Cross
Both inns sit on the busiest parts of the village. High Street is narrow, used as a cut-through, and carries lorries that sometimes get stuck, and The Cross has no footpaths. Ladder positions and the van need planning, with barriers and signs where pedestrians would otherwise walk into the work area. We are fully insured for this kind of work and can set out the method in writing before starting.
See our main commercial painting page for how we plan business jobs, and the Great Houghton area page for the village’s housing and heritage.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
