Today’s picture, admittantly only loosely relevant to the current topic, shows the grand cemeteryman’s house in Bridlington municipal cemetery.
There were other ways of tackling rising damp in domestic properties (s.p.b.). One that can be found being used into the early 20th century was to insert, usually between the first and second courses of brick walling, slates, usually Welsh Cambrian slates which, being non-porous blocked the upward passage of damp. Although a sound idea in theory there was a problem in that the slate needed to be set in a thick mortar in the hope of it not snapping as the wall ‘settled’, thus failing to achieve the objective. That said, it is still possible to find walls with the slates intact.
A bit later in the 20th century a thick, black, viscous mastic was used in the lowest part of the wall. This, presumably some sort of tar-based substance, can often be noticed as some of the material was squeezed out as the weight of the wall increased and the mastic then solidified.
Usually when a medieval parish church had a ‘Gothic Revival’ makeover (Oxford Movement and all that) a channel was dug around the exterior base of the old wall, this to allow air to flow arond the lower course(s) of the walling stone to wick-out the damp and thereby reduce the incidence of rising damp in the interior. I happen to have comes across documentary evidence of this for Walkington church from the Borthwick Institute in York, but there are many other examples, including that at my favourite church in Paull.
Just to mention a walk I did today through Elloughton golf course area, to Brough Haven, east along the Humber bank then inland to Brough and Elloughton. Having parked on Brough Road, Elloughton I realised I was beside a short terrace that had clearly originally been single-storey, stone-built cottage, these later given an upper storey in brick and slate roof. The join between the top course of stone and the bottom of brick required a thick course of mortar to provide a level bed for the bricks.
(to be continued)