Notes from the Hillside scaffolding

The mortar question on Hillside looked settled on paper — a 1:2.5 lime-to-aggregate mix matched from laboratory analysis of the original. Then the first trial panel dried two shades too pale, and the second crazed in the March sun. The wall was teaching us about its sand.

We ended up sieving aggregate from a quarry eleven kilometres from the original source. The colour settled, the carbonation behaved, and the panel now reads as one surface with the surviving pointing beside it.

Keeping the scars

The west elevation carries shrapnel pitting from the 1940s. The brief asked us to make it disappear; we argued, gently, to keep it. Filled flush where water could lodge, left legible everywhere else. A building that has stood for a century should be allowed to look like it.

Next on the sequence: the timber sash survey, and a decision about the café terrace balustrade that we suspect is not original at all.