On Monday 22nd June, Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall visited Ty-Mawr Lime Ltd at their head quarters on the southern shore of Llangorse Lake near Brecon.
The couple spent an hour and a half touring the site, meeting the tutors of their lime plastering, introduction to lime and thatching courses as well as looking at the manufacturing process before officially opening their Training Centre.
Restoration of the Training Centre
The restoration of the training centre took 8 years and included major rebuilding to both the south and east elevations, reconstructing the enormous hipped roves that have been finished using some 24 tonne of diminishing stone tiles as well as remaking all of the doors and windows using local oak, cast iron and handmade glass.
It also involved the construction of a new service block using a system they have designed for timber-framed buildings of wool insulation combined with wood wool boards and glaster lime plaster.
Maintaining the Functionality of the Building
In doing the work, owners Nigel and Joyce Gervis have tried to demonstrate the importance of caring appropriately for the original fabric of the building and in particular respecting the way the building was designed to function, this will ensure the longevity of the building with minimal intervention in the years and decades ahead.
Minimal Environmental Impact
They also wanted to ensure that any work undertaken had minimal environmental impact both in terms of the choice of material e.g. using Welsh sheep’s wool insulation, local stone tiles and slates and by using recycled glass/hemp instead of virgin sand in the lime plasters.
Secondly, consideration was given to the on-going environmental costs of actually running the buildings, so here technologies such as solar thermal, rainwater harvesting and biomass heating were all implemented. The heating system alone will save 40 tonne of carbon dioxide emission per annum.
Energy Efficiency
Lime hemp plasters were used on the walls to make it as energy efficient as possible without interrupting the feel or functionality of the building.
One of the big concerns for the business, is the number of buildings that are inappropriately repaired/renovated due to a whole number of factors including time, cost, structural concerns or increasingly in the huge drive for energy efficiency which is going to cause untold damage to solid wall construction if inappropriate materials are continued to be used.
Courses
Ty-Mawr began running courses in 1993 and just within the last 12 months have delivered 63 training days to over 700 delegates both at Ty-Mawr and on behalf of other organisations including Her Majesties Prisons, British Waterways and the National Trust.
The successful specification and application of traditional and sustainable building materials is still one of the greatest challenges facing the industry, the courses go along way to helping move the use of the materials forward and minimizing problems on-site.
Opening the Training Centre
Joyce Gervis, Director of Ty-Mawr invited The Prince of Wales to open the centre, he warmly responded congratulating the business and the team on the hard work over the last fifteen years in making the materials available, developing products that helped addressed some of the environmental concerns we have today and in spreading the word.
The Prince removed the Liberty Print cloth, inspired and named after Ty-Mawr, to unveil a stone plaque made of Forest Of Dean sandstone, beautifully designed by Mr Rory Young, a stone carver and artist from Cirencester. Rory was one of the founders of the resurgence in the use of lime in the 1970s and has taught our courses at Ty-Mawr for more than ten years.
Click here for more information about Their Royal Highnesses summer tour in Brecon.
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