Exeter college Dining Room, oxford

The Historic City of Oxford

The historic city of Oxford is right on our doorstep at Unity Lime, so we’re very pleased to have been involved in yet another exciting build in our local area. Repair work needed to be carried out in the dining hall at Exeter College, so we jumped at the chance to supply a lime plastered internal wall insulation system for this project.

There are historic buildings all over the city of dreaming spires and this particular building is the 4th oldest college within the internationally renowned Oxford University.

The building itself is situated on Turl street in central Oxford and having been built in 1314 Walter de Stapledon (Bishop of Exeter – hence the name), is over 700 years old and steeped in history. This is to say nothing of the list of well known famous figures who have attended over the centuries. Just a few of the people who have been students there and gone on to achieve great things include J.R.R. Tolkien, Sir Philip Pullman, Reeta Chakrabarti, Alan Bennett, Sir Roger Bannister………..well, the list goes on and on.

THE PROJECT

The task for the contactor was to stabilize and bring out the existing wall, then finish using a system that’s sympathetic to the fabric of the historical building and will maintain the internal lime finish. A flat finish was not required for this particular situation, in-fact the college requested the opposite as they wanted to retain the historic character and original charm of the wall.

As with all Unity Lime systems which are to be retro fitted, when we offered this solution, we did so placing as much importance on looking after the fabric of the existing building as the performance of the system itself. Although in this instance the system was not chosen specifically for it’s insulating properties, we know it will perform exceptionally and do its part to preserve this fantastic piece of culturally significant history.