We paint render, previously painted stone and brick, and boundary walls in New Duston, NN5, which sits 2.8 miles north-west of the town centre at the top of the Nene valley slope. On the natural stone cottages at the old centre Dean uses breathable mineral or silicate systems, and he will say so plainly when a wall is better left bare.
Why the old centre’s stone needs to breathe
The first houses in New Duston were terraces of natural stone cottages at the meeting of Main Road, Port Road and Quarry Road. Duston has a long quarrying history, with iron ore worked from the 1850s with a limestone quarry north of Bants Lane that had shut by 1901, and the restored quarry ground at Duston Wildes is still a reminder of it. Stone walls of this kind were built to take in rain and let it dry out again through the face. Coat them in an ordinary acrylic or plastic masonry paint and that drying stops. Moisture then sits behind the film, which leads to blistering paint, damp patches inside and, in a hard winter, frost damage to the stone itself.
Where a stone cottage here has never been painted, our advice is simple: leave it. Where an earlier owner has already painted it, the job is to replace failing paint with something that lets the wall breathe. That usually means:
- removing loose and blistered coatings by hand rather than with high-pressure jets that erode soft stone and mortar
- letting the wall dry out properly before anything new goes on
- using a mineral or silicate masonry paint, which bonds into the stone rather than forming a skin over it
- looking at pointing first, since cement-hard repairs on old stone can hold water as badly as the wrong paint
Red brick cottages and later houses
The red brick cottages that followed the stone terraces are mostly bare brick, and that is how they are meant to look. Painting the face of unpainted brick is a commitment for life, so on these houses masonry work normally means the sills, plinths, rendered panels and boundary walls rather than whole elevations. If a brick front has already been painted, we repaint it in a breathable finish.
The 20th-century suburban housing and the large estates around Weggs Farm Road and Rochelle Way are where render and painted masonry are more likely to turn up, on porches, garage walls and feature panels. Those are straightforward repaints once any algae, chalking or hairline cracking has been dealt with.
Front boundary walls and policy BE1
Painting your own walls here does not normally need consent, because New Duston lies beyond the Old Duston conservation boundary and has no Article 4 direction we know of. It is, however, a local character area under Duston Neighbourhood Plan policy BE1, which asks new work to respect the stone and red brick vernacular and specifically mentions front boundary walls. A bright white coat on a stone front wall can look out of place in a row of natural stone. If a wall has to be painted, we suggest muted stone and earth tones that keep the street reading as one.
The handful of newer homes by Duston Wildes went up in local stone trimmed in brick, deliberately echoing the old centre. That masonry is new and should not need any coating at all for many years.
Wall by wall
| Surface | Typical New Duston location | Our approach |
|---|---|---|
| Unpainted natural stone | Original terraces at the old centre | Leave bare; repoint where needed |
| Previously painted stone | Some of the same terraces | Strip failing paint, dry out, mineral or silicate paint |
| Bare red brick | Later cottages around the junction | Leave the face; paint sills and plinths only |
| Render panels and porches | 20th-century and estate houses | Clean, fill, two coats of breathable masonry paint |
| Front boundary walls | Throughout the old centre | Bare where possible; muted colours if already painted |
Walls near the woodland edge at Harlestone Firs stay shaded and damp for longer, so we always kill and remove green growth before painting. More detail on products is on our main render and masonry painting service and in the guide to painting render and roughcast. Everything else we cover locally is on the New Duston area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
