The material register
Life at the works.
Every material in the building, laid out like a sample board — where it comes from and where you will find it. Below, one Saturday, hour by hour.
Limewashed plaster
Somerset lime, slaked on site in the old loading yard
Every wall in the kiln hall residences, four coats, burnished by hand
Reclaimed 1864 stock brick
Salvaged from the fallen western range during remediation — 11,200 cleaned by hand
Repairs to the retained kiln hall walls, laid where the original was struck
Staffordshire blue engineering brick
Chesterton Works, Stoke-on-Trent
The new wing’s plinth and the rebuilt canal edge
Quarter-sawn English oak
Wykeham Estate, North Yorkshire, air-dried three years
Floors in 180mm boards, stair treads, wardrobes and window seats
Penrhyn slate
Bethesda, North Wales
The roof of the retained kiln hall range, laid in diminishing courses
Unlacquered brass
Cast and finished in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter
Ironmongery, switch plates and kitchen taps — left to darken where hands go
Purbeck limestone
Quarried on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset
Lobby floors, thresholds and window cills throughout both wings
Kiln terrazzo
Cast in Yorkshire with lime aggregate recovered from the calcining floor
Bathroom floors in every residence — the building, ground and set
Galvanised steel glazing
Thermally broken sections, fabricated in Sheffield
The hopper windows of the kiln hall and the new wing’s water-facing screens
Lime mortar
Matched by eye and then by analysis to the 1864 original
All repointing across 340 linear metres of retained elevation
No. 02 — A Saturday at The Limeworks
07:30
The towpath belongs to you, a rower’s wake, and one unhurried heron. Coffee from the hatch at Ropewalk on the way back.
09:30
The queue at Gauge Street Bakery moves at the speed of conversation. Take the second loaf; the first never survives the walk.
12:30
The summer hang at the Boilerhouse, then lunch on The Dredger’s wharf terrace while the narrowboats sort themselves out.
15:30
Home through the lime garden. An hour on the window seat while the light works its way across the flue wall.
19:00
Friends arrive by tram, six minutes from town, and claim the long table. Windows open; the water does its evening work.
22:30
The Basin goes quiet the way it has for a century and a half — early, completely, and without being asked.
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.
The material register
Life at the works.
Every material in the building, laid out like a sample board — where it comes from and where you will find it. Below, one Saturday, hour by hour.
Limewashed plaster
Somerset lime, slaked on site in the old loading yard
Every wall in the kiln hall residences, four coats, burnished by hand
Reclaimed 1864 stock brick
Salvaged from the fallen western range during remediation — 11,200 cleaned by hand
Repairs to the retained kiln hall walls, laid where the original was struck
Staffordshire blue engineering brick
Chesterton Works, Stoke-on-Trent
The new wing’s plinth and the rebuilt canal edge
Quarter-sawn English oak
Wykeham Estate, North Yorkshire, air-dried three years
Floors in 180mm boards, stair treads, wardrobes and window seats
Penrhyn slate
Bethesda, North Wales
The roof of the retained kiln hall range, laid in diminishing courses
Unlacquered brass
Cast and finished in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter
Ironmongery, switch plates and kitchen taps — left to darken where hands go
Purbeck limestone
Quarried on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset
Lobby floors, thresholds and window cills throughout both wings
Kiln terrazzo
Cast in Yorkshire with lime aggregate recovered from the calcining floor
Bathroom floors in every residence — the building, ground and set
Galvanised steel glazing
Thermally broken sections, fabricated in Sheffield
The hopper windows of the kiln hall and the new wing’s water-facing screens
Lime mortar
Matched by eye and then by analysis to the 1864 original
All repointing across 340 linear metres of retained elevation
No. 02 — A Saturday at The Limeworks
07:30
The towpath belongs to you, a rower’s wake, and one unhurried heron. Coffee from the hatch at Ropewalk on the way back.
09:30
The queue at Gauge Street Bakery moves at the speed of conversation. Take the second loaf; the first never survives the walk.
12:30
The summer hang at the Boilerhouse, then lunch on The Dredger’s wharf terrace while the narrowboats sort themselves out.
15:30
Home through the lime garden. An hour on the window seat while the light works its way across the flue wall.
19:00
Friends arrive by tram, six minutes from town, and claim the long table. Windows open; the water does its evening work.
22:30
The Basin goes quiet the way it has for a century and a half — early, completely, and without being asked.