Stonework in Corfu Town

In Corfu Town we work mostly with what is already standing. The Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its Venetian-era walls were built to breathe, laid in lime, not cement. So the work here is repointing, rebuilding and restoration: opening old joints, raking out hard cement that traps damp, and bedding stone back in lime mortar so the wall can dry as it was meant to.

The fabric of the town is its own argument for doing this properly. Sinies limestone from Mount Pantokrator has clad Corfu's Lodge of the Nobles, now the Town Hall, since the 1660s, and the same stone faces houses, courtyards and stairwells across the centre. When a section needs making good we match the stone, dress it by hand to sit with its neighbours, and keep the original coursing rather than imposing a tidy modern line.

Most of what we are asked for in the centre is honest repair. Repointing a damp-stained façade in lime so the wall stops sweating behind cement. Rebuilding a leaning Venetian wall stone by stone, keeping the through-stones and hearting that hold it together. Re-dressing a worn quoin or a sagging arch so the load travels the way the original mason intended. Quiet work, much of it invisible once done, which is the point.

All of our restoration work runs on the same principle: lime mortar throughout, Sinies stone where new material is needed, and nothing introduced that the old wall cannot live with. That is the register we bring inside the Old Town walls, restoration first, additions only where the building asks for them, and cement kept well away from stone that was built to breathe.