Stone & brick masonry · Pelegrove · hand-struck joints since 1986
The joint is the wall’s biography. We read it before we touch it.
Three crews quoted our 1898 gable by photograph. Strike & Feather came out, read the joints aloud like a chart at the foot of the bed — what the wall had been repointed with, when, and why it was failing now — and then quoted a number we could check against every word of it.
Services
The four crafts
01
Lime repointing, read first
Joints raked by hand to twice their width — never ground, a wheel burns the arris we are being paid to keep — then flushed full in two passes with natural hydraulic lime matched to the chip from your own wall. NHL 3.5 in the sheltered field, NHL 5 at copings and parapets where the weather hits hardest. Portland never enters a pre-1930 wall on our watch: it is stronger than the brick, so winter breaks the brick to save the mortar.
02
Anchored stone veneer
Full-bed and thin stone hung on 316 stainless Z-anchors and dowel pins at sixteen inches on centre, dovetailed into a scratch-and-double-back coat over a two-layer weather barrier, with base flashing and weep vents so water leaves at the bottom instead of touring the wall. The anchors are the wall; the stone is the coat the wall wears.
03
Arches & lintels
Segmental and semicircular arches rebuilt on timber centering bent to the drawn curve: voussoirs cut and numbered on the ground, laid from both spring lines toward the crown, keystone set last, centering struck only after the ring closes and the mortar has taken. An arch is an argument with gravity that geometry wins — provided nobody rushes the mortar.
04
Hearths & fire features
Firebrick laid to the duty the room deserves — moderate-duty for the Sunday fire, high-duty where a Rumford box runs every evening — with fireclay joints struck thin and a cast crown that sheds water instead of drinking it. We ask how you live with the fire before we pick the brick, because the room is the specification.
The yard ledger
Thirty-eight seasons of reading walls
Every figure below is counted from the yard book, not estimated from memory — and every elevation in it can be stood in front of, in daylight, with the owner’s blessing.
Recent work
The wall book
Six walls from around Pelegrove and the chapel parishes — points, veneers, arches and one hearth that gets more compliments than the plasterwork. Every owner will let you stand in the garden and read the joints yourself.
How it goes
Survey to strike
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
Visit one
The reading
The wall is read joint by joint before a price exists: what the original mortar was, what has been patched over it, where the water is getting in. A chip leaves an inconspicuous joint and is matched; you keep a written square-foot number, held sixty days.
Week 1
Rake by hand
Scaffolding up, sheets down, joints opened to twice their width with chisels and vacuumed clean, depth verified joint by joint. Shallow raking is how walls fail behind beautiful mortar — the biography gets read to the end, not the cover.
Weeks 2–4
Point in two passes
NHL lime flushed full, the first pass stiffened before the second, struck to the profile the wall was born with — flush, weather-struck or bucket-handle — and brushed at leather-hard so the joint reads old from across the street.
Week 6
Cure & strike
Carbonation finishes under mist and covers, misted in heat and protected from frost. Then the final brush, the twenty-five-year warranty signed into your name, and the scaffold leaves for the last time.
The mason read our joints out loud like a doctor reading a chart, then matched the lime to a chip from our own wall instead of a bucket on the truck. Two winters on, the gable dries after rain and the patch is invisible from the pavement.
They rebuilt the Exchange arch with the voussoirs numbered like a museum crate and struck the centering on a Tuesday with no ceremony at all. The ring holds itself now, they said — which I have thought about roughly weekly since.
The anchor spacing was on the quote with a number attached, and the weeps were on the drawing. Three winters, zero movement, zero streaking. The stone reads like it grew there.
Lime, anchors, arches
Asked at every reading
Why won’t you point my old wall in portland?
Because a wall built before 1930 was designed to breathe through its mortar. Lime is softer than the brick and sacrificial — it weathers out so the brick doesn’t have to. Portland is stronger than old brick, so the freeze-thaw cycle breaks the brick to save the mortar: exactly backwards, and expensive in the way you cannot see for five years.
What do the veneer anchors actually carry?
The stone, forever. We set 316 stainless Z-anchors and dowel pins at sixteen inches on centre into a scratch coat, over a two-layer weather barrier, with flashing and weep vents at the base. The stone can be re-pointed in thirty years; the anchors are the part you never want to revisit.
How does an arch rebuild work?
Timber centering is bent to the drawn curve, voussoirs are cut and numbered on the ground, laid from both spring lines toward the crown, and the keystone goes in last. The centering comes out only after the ring closes and the mortar has taken its initial set — remove it early and the arch never forgives the hurry.
What firebrick grade does a hearth need?
Duty is rated by how hot and how often. Moderate-duty carries the Sunday fire; high-duty carries an every-evening wood fire and a Rumford box that runs hot. We ask how the room is lived in before we pick the brick, and the grade is written on the drawing you keep.
How small a wall will you take?
A garden gate pier, a hearth repair, forty square feet of spalling — small work is how the second generation learned, and it is still welcomed. The reading visit is the same size either way.
Twenty-five years, joint to keystone
If a joint we pointed fails, an anchor we set lets go, or an arch we rebuilt settles inside twenty-five years, we return and correct it at no charge — and the warranty follows the house, not the invoice.
strike@strikefeather.example · Pelegrove · readings year-round
Send us the wall’s story.
Year built, what is spalling or sprouting, a photo if you can manage one. The reading visit brings the chip kit and a written square-foot number inside the week — and the wall does the talking first.