Dean paints shopfronts and business frontages in Harlestone, NN7. The village, 4.3 miles north-west of Northampton, has one shop and post office rather than a parade, plus a Grade II listed pub on the A428 and a few other premises, so each frontage is treated as a heritage job in its own right.
Harlestone’s commercial frontages
Harlestone is not a place with a high street. Its businesses are spread across a rural parish of two settlements, and most of them occupy historic buildings. The list of what is here is short:
| Premises | What shapes the work |
|---|---|
| Village shop and post office | A single shop in a conservation area, with one of the village’s two K6 telephone kiosks beside it |
| The Fox and Hounds, A428 | Grade II coaching-era inn of lias ashlar under slate, with 12-pane sashes facing fast A428 traffic |
| Northampton Golf Club clubhouse | Beside the lake on the site of the demolished Harlestone House, in former parkland largely brought into the conservation area in 2017 |
| Garden centre by Harlestone Firs | Across the A428 from the village |
| Village Institute, school and builder’s yard | Community and working buildings, the Institute being pale-rendered and dating from 1924 |
So shopfront painting here is a handful of individual jobs. It is never a run of matching units, and each one depends on what the building is. At the golf clubhouse and garden centre, the practical concerns are weather, tree cover and working around visitors.
A shop in a conservation area
For the village shop, the frontage work is the joinery, which on a small shop typically means a fascia board, window frames, the door and perhaps a stallriser. The design guidance for the Harlestone Conservation Area asks for painted frames in white or a sensitive colour, and the proposed Article 4 Direction would bring significant colour changes under control. A rebrand in bright corporate colours is the sort of change that should be cleared with West Northamptonshire Council before we start. Repainting in the existing scheme is the simpler job.
If the fascia carries signwritten lettering, photograph it before work starts so a signwriter can reinstate it in the same position and style afterwards. Timber fascias fixed to stone buildings often have soft ends where water runs behind them. We cut those out and splice in new wood, prime the end grain and only then paint, so the board does not fail again at the corners within a couple of winters.
We protect the lias stone around the frontage, because bare stone is meant to stay bare. The K6 telephone kiosk by the Post Office is not part of a shopfront job, and we work around it.
Listed frontages on the A428
The Fox and Hounds stands on the old turnpike road, which is why Lower Harlestone has its cluster of 18th century buildings. A frontage like this means timber sashes and doors on a Grade II building, worked like-for-like, with Listed Building Consent where anything changes. Being on the A428 also means traffic grime builds up on the joinery, so washing down is a proper stage of the job, and the frontage will need repainting more often than one off the main road. Ladder and tower positions have to be planned carefully, with the road this close.
Keeping the business open
A village shop or pub cannot close for a repaint, and customers have nowhere else in Harlestone to go. We agree working hours with you first, keep the entrance usable throughout, and do the door at the start or end of the day so it can dry while you are shut. Wet paint signs go up wherever a hand might touch. The full process, including timing and paint systems, is on our shopfront painting service page. For interiors and other business premises in the village, see commercial painting, and for homes, the Harlestone area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
