About Nigel

Starting out as a dry-stone waller in Cornwall, Nigel trained after 1989 as stonemason and carver at Weymouth College, working largely thereafter in the conservation industry across the south and south-west of England, and regularly after 1999 in Vermont, USA, as well as in Granada, Andalusia.

Nigel has worked extensively as consultant and practitioner in the field of building conservation and repair in North Yorkshire upon a wide range of vernacular and high status buildings, designing, specifying and executing major repair projects to a wide range of historic buildings within the town of Malton, as well as researching, designing and specifying a number of building repair and conservation projects on behalf of Natural England and working closely in recent years with the North York Moors National Park, as well as working as consultant and practitioner at the Cole Island National Historic Site in Vancouver Island, British Columbia, 2014-2021.

Nigel is a Professionally Accredited Conservator-Restorer and determined advocate for the thoroughgoing use of traditional materials in the care and repair of old buildings and a leading advocate for the routine use of hot mixed lime and traditional earth-lime mortars for most applications.

Nigel regularly delivers hot mixed earth and lime mortars and traditional skills training and led the Practical Conservation Skills module at York University for 15 years, and until recently. His book, Hot Mixed Lime and Traditional Mortars was published in 2019, as well as his HES Technical Paper 30, a review of historic literature concerning lime.

He has more recently been awarded an MA by Research on the same. Nigel works closely with the Technical research teams of Historic England and Historic Environment Scotland, as well as with a variety of international partners in the delivery of traditional skills training and education and regularly consults on historic building projects in the UK and further afield. He remains on the tools, however, the majority of the time.