Client: Ancoats Building Preservation Trust
Project: Repair and restoration of Murrays’ Mills
Architect: Building Design Partnership
Contractor: Lightburn Construction (Leigh) Ltd
Product: Limetec® hydraulic lime mortar
Completion date: 2007

LIME MORTAR PROVIDES PERFECT MATCH TO HISTORIC MORTAR

The world’s oldest surviving steam powered cotton mills have received a new lease of life thanks to traditional lime mortar from Lime Technology. After years of neglect, the Murrays’ Mills complex in Manchester, has undergone significant repair and restoration thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and NWDA.

Project architects and engineers, Building Design Partnership, were tasked to reinstate two storeys of the Murray Street Block North, which was originally built in 1804, and also to repair the existing brickwork to the remainder of the Grade II* listed buildings’ shells.

This needed to be done sympathetically, bearing in mind the immeasurable historical significance of the buildings. Limetec® moderately hydraulic mortar was specified as it provided the best match to the original mortar.

Contractor Lightburn Construction (Leigh) Ltd took down decayed and structurally failed brickwork and, using Limetec® moderately hydraulic mortar, painstakingly bedded in thousands of individual new brick replacements. The replacement bricks were hand made to match the originals, and the new walls were then pointed with Limetec® mortar.