The development
A works, continued.
The Basin Lime Works opened in 1864, burning limestone barged down from the hills into quicklime for the mortar of a growing city. For nearly a century the four calcining flues ran day and night; it is not much of an exaggeration to say the surrounding streets are held together by what was made here. The works closed in 1961 and then did what redundant buildings do — stood, leaked, and waited.
Feldspar Projects bought the site in 2022 and spent two years surveying before drawing anything. The decision that shaped everything else was made early: keep whatever could honestly stand, and add only what the building asked for. The kiln hall now holds twenty-six residences within the original walls; the new wing, on the footprint of the lost western range, adds sixteen more. Forty-two homes, one address.
The architects are Coates Merrow, a practice that has spent twenty years working on buildings other people had given up on. Their instruction from us ran to a single sentence: nothing false, nothing loud. The result is a conversion that does not perform its history — the brick is structural, the steel is doing work, and where something is new it says so plainly.
Every residence, from the Kiln Studios to the Calciner Penthouses, is finished to one specification — the same slaked lime, the same quarter-sawn oak, the same unlacquered brass. We call it the standard, and it is not negotiable in either direction. A studio here is not a lesser version of the penthouse; it is a smaller amount of exactly the same building.
Developer
Feldspar Projects
One project at a time since 2004. The Limeworks is the fourth, and the first on water.
Architects
Coates Merrow
They measure first and draw second, which is rarer than it should be.
Landscape
Ling & Marsh
The lime garden’s planting was trialled through two winters in a Cumbrian yard before a single bed was dug.
The course of works
Verified on site — June 2026
Remediation & enabling works
Q1–Q2 2025
Complete
Groundworks & foundations
Q2–Q4 2025
Complete
Structural retention & new frame
Q4 2025–Q3 2026
In progress
Envelope — roof, brick & glazing
Q2 2026–Q1 2027
In progress
Fit-out & services
Q4 2026–Q2 2027
Ahead
Landscape & public realm
Q3 2026–Q3 2027
In progress
Register your interest.
The register is the only list we keep. It is not a marketing database — it is the order in which we call people when a residence is released, and the way we send the plates. Joining it commits you to nothing except hearing from us occasionally, in writing, when there is something worth saying.