Roughcast and pebbledash are durable coarse

plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...

surfaces used on outside walls. They consists of lime and sometimes

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

mixed with

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

, small

gravel Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gr ...

and often

pebble A pebble is a clastic rocks, clast of rock (geology), rock with a grain size, particle size of based on the Particle size (grain size), Udden-Wentworth scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered larger than Granule (geology), gra ...

s or shells. The materials are mixed into a slurry and are then thrown at the working surface with a trowel or scoop. The idea is to maintain an even spread, free from lumps, ridges or runs and without missing any background. Roughcasting incorporates the stones in the mix, whereas pebbledashing adds them on top. According to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition (1910–1911), roughcast had been a widespread exterior coating given to the walls of common dwellings and outbuildings, but it was then frequently employed for decorative effect on

country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...

s, especially those built using

timber framing Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...

(half timber). Variety can be obtained on the surface of the wall by small

s of different colours, and in the

Tudor period In England and Wales, the Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603, including the Elizabethan era during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603). The Tudor period coincides with the dynasty of the House of Tudor in England, which began with ...

fragments of

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

were sometimes embedded. Though it is an occasional home-design fad, its general unpopularity in the UK was estimated to reduce the value of a property by up to 5%.Research performed for Direct Line Insurance, published 2006
/ref> However roughcasting remains very popular in Scotland and rural Ireland, with a high percentage of new houses being built with roughcasting. This exterior wall finish was made popular in England and Wales during the 1920s, when housing was in greater demand, and house builders were forced to cut costs wherever they could, and used pebbledash to cover poor quality brick work, which also added rudimentary weather protection. Pebbles were dredged from the seabed to provide the

building material Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings and other structures, like bridges. Apart from natur ...

needed, although most modern pebbledash is actually not pebbles at all, but small and sharp flint chips, known as spar dash or spa dash. There are several varieties of this spar dash such as Canterbury spar, sharp-dash, sharpstone dash, thrown dash, pebble stucco, Derbyshire Spar, yellow spar, golden gravel, black and white, and also sunflower. According to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition, the central tower of St Albans Cathedral, built with Roman

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, Rock (geology), stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, wal ...

s from Verulamium, was covered with roughcast believed to be as old as the building. The roughcast was removed around 1870.

References

External links

* {{commons category-inline, Roughcast (walls) Building Building materials Plastering

See also

References

External links