DH Painter & Decorator paints the outside of homes in The Bramptons, the twin villages of Chapel Brampton and Church Brampton in NN6. Dean covers the parish from our Northampton base, a few miles south-east of it, and quotes after looking at the joinery, cladding and metalwork on your house.
On an ironstone cottage, the stone is usually left alone
The older houses on the four roads that meet at the Chapel Brampton crossroads, and along Back Lane, are built of regularly coursed ironstone rubble, with ashlar kept for mullions and door surrounds. The Chapel Brampton Conservation Area appraisal, adopted in February 2020, advises against painting or rendering bare ironstone frontages and treats masonry paint on pre-1919 buildings as often unacceptable. So an exterior job on one of these cottages is rarely about the walls. It is about the timber casements, plank doors, wooden lintels, gabled porches and the ironwork, with the stone and its lime pointing kept clean of paint.
That makes masking and cutting-in the main skill. Ironstone is soft and porous, and a stray brush mark on the stone around a door surround is hard to remove without damage. We sheet the ground, tape only where tape will not lift the face of the stone, and cut joinery edges by hand. Where an older wall has already been limewashed, renewing it is a separate task, covered on our render and masonry page.
Listed estate cottages and what like-for-like means
The Spencer estate built planned terraces with shared wash houses in both villages, dated 1848 and attributed to E. Blore, and the almshouse at Almscourt in Church Brampton followed in 1858. These groups are listed Grade II. Repainting the existing joinery in its existing colour is normal maintenance, but a change of colour or finish on a listed building can affect its character, so the owner should check with West Northamptonshire Council before choosing anything new. Window frames in the conservation area are expected to stay white or follow the original colour.
The Tudor-style plank and ribbed doors under four-centred doorheads take an oil-based or microporous joinery finish. We keep sound timber, fill and splice where needed, and only suggest a joiner if a section is beyond repair. Because terraced neighbours share walls and wash houses, we agree with you beforehand where ladders will stand and where sheets will go.
Cedar Hythe: timber cladding, metal frames and overhanging trees
Brampton House came down in 1967, and Cedar Hythe went up in its grounds as four architect designs of buff brick with horizontal timber cladding over porches, garages and windows. The appraisal wants that cladding kept white-painted or brown-stained and renewed like for like, which in practice means recoating the same finish every few years, before the boards start to split. Surviving aluminium window frames and glazed sliding porches are kept too, and painting them needs degreasing and an etch or metal primer, not ordinary gloss.
Cedar Hythe is one large Tree Preservation Order area. Nothing can be lopped for access without consent, so cladding under the canopy stays damp, collects leaf litter, and grows green algae on its north faces. We wash it down with a fungicidal treatment, let it dry fully and book the work for a settled spell.
Working along the A5199 and the open village edge
The front wall of many historic cottages is the back edge of the pavement or verge. On the A5199, a former turnpike that still carries through traffic, a ladder footing on the footway needs barriers and someone at the foot while work is going on. Back Lane’s west side has verges instead of a footway, which gives a little more room. Chapel Brampton sits on a slope facing east towards the Brampton arm of the River Nene, and houses on the edge of the village face open farmland, so wind-driven rain and morning dew affect when a coat can go on.
For what an exterior job includes in general, see our exterior painting service. Our Bramptons area page covers the parish as a whole, and the cost guide explains how quotes are worked out.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
