A Georgian plaster frieze of putti, garlands and medallions, newly cast in LTM's workshop

Lime plastering, render and decorative plasterwork:

Lime Plastering

Plain, lath and plaster, decorative and cast work

Our role
In-house plasterers, working alongside our masons, joiners and roofers
What we do
Lath and lime plaster, three-coat lime plaster on stone, lime render, decorative and fibrous plasterwork, consolidation
Materials
Lime putty and hot-mixed lime, haired base coats, riven timber lath, natural hydraulic lime render
Decorative
Cornices run in situ, ceiling roses, friezes and enrichments cast from moulds taken off the original
Conservation
Consolidation and reattachment of historic plaster, ceilings and cornices
Projects
Aultmore House, Glamis Castle, Slamannan Church, Inverness Town House, Stirling Methodist Church, St Athernase Church, The Haining, Royal Highland Hotel, Ben Alder Chapel

Lime plaster is the proper partner to a lime-built wall: it breathes, it moves a little with the building, and it can be repaired rather than replaced. LTM's plasterers work inside and out, from plain three-coat lime plaster on lath or stone to running cornices in situ and casting lost enrichments from the surviving original. The same team consolidates historic plaster that is failing, so that as much of the original as possible stays on the wall.

A lath and plaster ceiling opened up for consolidation: the laths exposed where the plaster had lost its key, the sound work left in place
A ceiling rebuilt from the joists up: new timbers and sarking over the stripped stone walls before lathing and plastering
An attic room fully lathed for lime plaster, the new laths following the coombed ceiling and the arched window
Consolidating a geometric ribbed plaster ceiling: working the junction between rib and panel before the surface is made good
A painted Adam-style ceiling, its oval of husk chains and fan rose restored and redecorated in red and gold
The centre of the same ceiling: the fluted rose and the chains of husks picked out in gilt
Floating lime plaster onto a window reveal with a wooden float, the arris formed against a rule
Aultmore House, Nethy Bridge: patching the coffered stairwell ceiling in lime, coffer by coffer

Lath and lime plaster

Traditional plaster is built up in coats on riven timber lath: a haired lime base coat keyed through the laths, a straightening coat and a fine finish, each left to carbonate before the next. We renew lath and lime plaster to ceilings and walls where the original is beyond saving, as at the nave and chancel roof of St Athernase Church in Leuchars, where the vaults were plastered, and the ballroom ceiling of the Royal Highland Hotel in Inverness, and we plaster straight onto stone in three-coat lime where that is how the building was finished. At Aultmore House in the Cairngorms the lath and plaster walls and ceilings of an Edwardian mansion were repaired in lime after the house had been opened up for services, together with its coffered stairwell ceiling and its cornices. Where gypsum or cement has been put onto a historic wall we take it off and replaster in lime, as in the fifteenth-century St Mary's Chapel at the Kirk of St Nicholas in Aberdeen.

Decorative, cast and fibrous work

Cornices are run in situ with a profile cut to the original section. Roses, friezes, paterae and other enrichments are cast: where a fragment of the original survives we take a mould from it, so the new work carries the same hand as the old, and where nothing survives we model from drawings or photographs. Larger ceiling elements are made as fibrous plaster in the workshop and fixed on site. The frieze on this page, a run of putti, garlands and medallions, was reproduced from one surviving length and now runs unbroken with the original; the ceiling rose within its fluted dome was modelled and cast new for a country house; and at Aultmore House the scrolled acanthus enrichment of the drawing room cornice was recast where it had been lost and fixed back among the original.

The Haining, Selkirk: lime render and run mouldings renewed on a Category A listed Georgian villa
A surviving section of Georgian frieze, decayed and over-painted, before moulding
New frieze sections cast in the workshop from the mould taken off the original
The new frieze fixed and painted, running unbroken with the original beneath the cornice
A new plaster ceiling rose within its fluted saucer dome, modelled and cast for a country house
The same rose close to: acanthus and flowers around the central boss, before the ceiling was decorated
A ceiling rose cast and cleaned up ready for fixing
Run mouldings in lime render at The Haining, formed in situ with a profile cut to the original
Ben Alder Chapel: three-coat lime plaster floated between the granite arcading and clerestory of the new estate chapel
Ben Alder Chapel: lime plaster to the walls of a new estate chapel built in traditional masonry

Lime render outside

The same plasterers carry out lime render on the outside of buildings that were never harled: the smooth stucco of Georgian and Victorian villas, with architraves, string courses and cornices run in situ in the render itself. At The Haining in Selkirk the render and its mouldings were renewed in lime across the elevations of a Category A listed villa. On new work in traditional masonry, such as the chapel on the Ben Alder Estate, we plaster the internal walls in lime so that the building performs as its stone construction expects.

Consolidation before replacement

A sagging or detached ceiling is not automatically a lost one. We survey it from above and below, find out what is holding and what has let go, and reattach the original plaster to its laths with screwed and washered fixings and lime grout rather than taking it down, replastering only the areas that have gone. That is how the ribbed lime plaster ceiling of the dining room at Glamis Castle was saved for the Strathmore Estate, and how the ceilings at Slamannan Church and Inverness Town House were consolidated and replastered and the ceiling of Stirling Methodist Church restored. It is also the approach we took to the lime plaster at Leith Hall and in our assessment of the cracked lath and plaster ceiling at Kildrummy Church.

What it means for your building

Original plaster kept

Historic ceilings, cornices and wall plaster consolidated and reattached wherever they can be, with new work only where the old is beyond saving.

Lost detail put back

Cornices, roses and enrichments reproduced from the building's own surviving fragments, so repairs read as part of the original scheme.

Inside and outside, one team

Plasterers who work alongside our masons, joiners and roofers, so the plaster, the wall behind it and the roof above it are dealt with as one job.

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A ceiling that is letting go?

Send us photographs or ask us to survey it. We will tell you what can be saved, what needs to be remade, and what it will take.

Discuss your project Call 01330 833 941

Lime plaster on site

Plastering case studies

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Lime Harling, Breathable finishes for Scotland's traditional buildings

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Lime Harling

Breathable finishes for Scotland's traditional buildings