Restoration specialist requests from Maidstone
Maidstone sits in the heart of Kentish ragstone country, and the county town and villages such as Bearsted, Lenham, Headcorn and Aylesford have ragstone walls, timber-framed hall houses and weatherboarded barns. Send your restoration project and we'll pass it to specialists covering ME14 to ME18 and ME20.
- Ragstone walls need careful lime pointing, as hard cement can speed up decay of the surrounding stone.
- Headcorn and the Low Weald villages have many timber-framed houses, including some medieval hall houses.
- Lenham and the villages along the foot of the Kent Downs often have flint walling with brick dressings.
Kentish ragstone walls around Maidstone and Aylesford
Ragstone was quarried in the Maidstone area for centuries, and you'll see it in houses, boundary walls and outbuildings across the town and in villages such as Aylesford, Allington and Boughton Monchelsea. It is a hard but uneven stone, laid in thick lime joints, and it relies on those joints to let moisture out. Where walls have been repointed in cement, stones can start to crack and flake. A specialist will rake out carefully, repoint in a lime mortar with a suitable local sand and replace only the stones that have failed. Garden and boundary walls are often the first to suffer, so check copings and the base of walls where soil has built up.
Hall houses and timber frames in Headcorn and the Low Weald
South of Maidstone, Headcorn, Sutton Valence and the Low Weald villages have a large number of timber-framed houses, some built as open hall houses and later floored over. Many have been altered several times, so a careful survey helps show which timbers are original and where water has caused decay. The heavy Weald clay holds water, so sole plates and post feet are vulnerable, and raising ground levels or adding hard paths against the frame makes things worse. Repairs usually involve propping, cutting out decay and scarfing in new oak. Bats are often found in old roofs here, so ask whoever quotes whether a bat survey is needed before work starts.
Towns and villages covered
Postcodes: ME14, ME15, ME16, ME17, ME18, ME20