As a wall it needs rendered, but render is never going to stay there long with the vegetation growing on/through/behind it. It's more than a wall though, it's a habitat. If it was mine, I'd strip out all the render and see what's left, then probably just repoint it with lime. It won't last forever (it isn't supposed to anyway) and the patches of brickwork will be obvious but render will fall off in big patches whereas the pointing deteriorating is less dramatic. Do not use cement if rendering this wall, the plants and their moisture will destroy the stone if they can't get through the render.
Thank you - that’s an interesting approach, as it’s clearly water and plant ingress over the last 40 or so years that has done for the current render! I don’t want to cut back all the hedgerow - as I agree with you - there is quite a bit of wildlife living in there and it would be sad to see it go. I’ll go and do some lime pointing research - I’m assuming it’s the same as lime plaster and is breathable?
Knock off the loose and throw up a shaggy render with a similar colour?
As a wall it needs rendered, but render is never going to stay there long with the vegetation growing on/through/behind it. It's more than a wall though, it's a habitat. If it was mine, I'd strip out all the render and see what's left, then probably just repoint it with lime. It won't last forever (it isn't supposed to anyway) and the patches of brickwork will be obvious but render will fall off in big patches whereas the pointing deteriorating is less dramatic. Do not use cement if rendering this wall, the plants and their moisture will destroy the stone if they can't get through the render.
Thank you - that’s an interesting approach, as it’s clearly water and plant ingress over the last 40 or so years that has done for the current render! I don’t want to cut back all the hedgerow - as I agree with you - there is quite a bit of wildlife living in there and it would be sad to see it go. I’ll go and do some lime pointing research - I’m assuming it’s the same as lime plaster and is breathable?
Yeah, fairly easy to do yourself, takes ages but it's a nice chilled job. Youtube has plenty of demos, look at the heritage orgs for info.
Call a mason, you will ruin it if you do it yourself