The historical development of a simple wall

David Northing a local builder with a great respect for the history of buildings and places asked me if I wanted to see a wall build-up he found, whilst rebuilding a gable end in Liversedge, West Yorkshire. The clay mortars used to build the wall date the building to the era of cottage cloth production before the time of canals and railways, when limestone was not available locally to burn and make lime mortar. The picture shows a layer of clay undercoat plaster and lime skim then lime plaster beyond it. The inside wall then appears to have been rendered/plastered with lime ash mortar and then had an inner brick wall built using the same ash mortar. This latter work may date to when the Luddites where meeting only a few Hundred Yards away to plan their attack on Rawfolds Mill, fighting against the industrialisation of cloth production and unemployment.