Repairs to a Historic Cob Wall

Traditional repair techniques in earthen architecture

St Agatha’s Church in Brightwell, Oxfordshire, is fortunate in possessing a most beautiful cob wall to part of their churchyard, although only a short length remains of its once historic grandeur.  Manifest were asked to specify and carry out a range of repairs, following severe cracking and degradation of the cob construction, principally through the failure of the thatched coping above.

We carried out extensive surveys of the wall itself and the cob from which it is made, as well as examining local soils to see what would be most appropriate as a repair medium.  We were then joined by volunteers co-ordinated by the local History Society, many from Brightwell itself with others joining from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, in carrying out mixes and repairs over two days on site.

Some of the deepest repairs were carried out with dried cob blocks, made in our Gloucestershire workshop some weeks before using Brightwell soils.  A final render coat was made with local sheep and horse manure admixture, and the whole was then limewashed over several weeks by keen volunteers.

The final flourish was the addition of a new thatched coping by a local thatcher (independently contracted).  The wall is now once more revealed in its full beauty, with minimal loss of historic fabric.