DH Painter & Decorator repaints metal gates and railings in Guilsborough, about 9.3 miles north-west of Northampton in NN6. On the older High Street houses, where the brick and stone are left bare, railings and gates are among the few surfaces that get painted. Dean removes the rust properly first and quotes for free.
Ironwork in a village of bare stone and brick
On Guilsborough’s older houses there is not much to paint outside. The lias and brick walls stay bare, and on brick houses with gauged arches, such as The Red House and The Sun, painting is usually confined to joinery, doors and railings. That makes the ironwork stand out. A rusty railing or a flaking gate in front of a clean lias wall is one of the first things people notice, and it is one of the few colour accents a listed frontage has.
The village’s historic ironwork is still visible. The gates of the former Guilsborough Hall survive in Guilsborough Park alongside the hall’s brick water tower, a reminder that ironwork here has outlasted the house it was made for. Garden railings on the older properties suit the traditional finish for period ironwork: black or a deep, dark colour rather than anything bright.
Rust where iron meets stone
The weak point on most old railings is not the bar but the foot. Where an iron upright is leaded or set into a lias coping or a brick plinth, water gathers in the joint. The iron rusts, and rust takes up more room than the metal it came from, so it can split the stone or crack the brick around it. Paint over that rust will lift within a year.
We clean these joints out carefully, wire brush the iron back to sound metal and treat the rust before priming. If a stone has already cracked, we tell you so it can be repaired by a mason. Then we prime the bare metal straight away, before it can flash-rust.
Working out what the metal is
Cast iron, wrought iron, mild steel and galvanised steel each need their own preparation, and an older village often has all four in one street. Cast iron finials and panels are brittle and should not be hit hard while cleaning. Wrought iron often carries many layers of old paint. Mild steel gates, often fitted later, rust quickly once the coating is broken. Galvanised gates need a primer made for zinc, or the paint simply peels. The main metal gate and railing page sets out the full system for each.
The order we work in
- Protect the pavement, any bare stone or brick behind the railing and nearby planting.
- Scrape off loose paint and wire brush to sound metal, by hand around delicate castings.
- Treat rust at the feet and joints, and clean out any packed debris.
- Prime bare metal the same day with a primer matched to the metal.
- Apply undercoat and a durable topcoat, usually black or a dark heritage colour.
- Paint the hinges, latches and gate stops, then check the gate still swings freely.
Listed fronts, roadside railings and the schools
Several High Street houses stand right on the road, so railings in front of them are worked from the pavement with barriers set out. Repainting listed railings in the same colour is maintenance, but a different colour on a listed house may need consent from West Northamptonshire Council. We can note the existing colour before we start.
Guilsborough Academy on West Haddon Road has buildings from 1959 and the 1970s, and painted metal of that age often needs specialist primers before a new coat will hold. Railings, gates and metalwork at either school are scheduled for the school holidays. Our Guilsborough page covers our other work in the village.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
