32 CONTEXT 189 : SEPTEMBER 2026 A woodland cottage in mid-Devon, isolated from the nearest farm by about a mile, had undergone brick and stone patch repairs over the years, but the building’s design was inherently problematic. The bottom couple of feet of the wall is a stone plinth. Unusually, this plinth had been built by excavating the soft shale ground around it. That presented a significant problem when trapped moisture and time caused the shale to begin softening. The rear wall was simply part of the bank behind. Conservation work involved detaching the bank from the house, and repairing rotten cob, plinth and timber components before providing a non-hydraulic lime finish. Floors were replaced with insulated limecrete at the ground floor, and new lime-stained and warped oak boards to the first floor gave the impression of 200-year old floors. JACK HENDERSON Cob, lime and the skills gap Transferring skilled general, non-heritage specialist tradespeople from the construction industry to heritage projects could be an effective way of meeting the skills shortage. For the past 20 years I have worked as a cob and lime specialist in the heritage sector as a tradesman and company director, and now as a building surveyor. I have come across, and worked with, many skilled general, non-heritage specialist tradespeople from the construction industry. There is no reason why their skills should not be transferable to heritage projects, but that seems to have been somewhat overlooked by the industry as a way of starting to bridge the skills gap. Research and insight from stakeholders, including Historic England and the IHBC, into the skills shortage, shows that almost every area of the heritage building sector is deficient in the skills and knowledge needed to keep up with the growing backlog of historic building repairs, to handle ongoing maintenance, and to facilitate future repairs. Areas identified include digital and data coordination, marketing and fundraising, leadership and management, and specialist technical and craft conservation skills. We also need skills to navigate the ever-evolving frontier of retrofit and climate resilience. Supplying the industry with an adequate number of trained people to preserve, maintain and adapt our built historic heritage needs a multi-pronged approach. Focusing on the specialist technical skills and conservation crafts section of the gap, let us look in more detail at the wider construction industry. I see no reason why the heritage sector can not tap into the highly skilled general construction resource. Why should the highly skilled non-heritage plasterers, masons and carpenters not transfer into the heritage sector, or work across both sectors? The term ‘heritage skills’ includes some highly specialist skills at the formal end of the scale, including paint conservators, carvers, stainedglass window restorers and lead workers. Such skills may be less transferable from other parts of the construction industry. However, these skills complement a range of more generally skilled renderers, plasterers, masons and carpenters, whose skills are essential in protecting the whole range of heritage assets, from barns and cottages to townhouses and cathedrals. The choice of materials is often the key component to heritage building repair. Lime is Applying lime plaster to the complex and curvy profile of a Grade II listed cob building could be well within the capability of sufficiently patient general plasterers.
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