Day three and four, at our heritage skills training workshop, at the Garrison in Bridgetown, were all about plastic stone and brick repair and lime plastering. Tutors and students from the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology, the Barbados Vocational Training Board, and the museum maintenance team, worked with Mark Womersley, to carry out plastic stone repair using St Astier St.One ‘Chalk’. This repair mix with excellent vapour permeability and a similar porosity to the stone and brick being repaired was coloured, with iron oxide based mineral pigments.

On the fourth day, we shaved the stone and brick repair, back to a finished level, with French drags, and carbide lions’ feet and provided frescoed staining to them. We repointed the repairs and the remaining bricks, using a pure lime mortar that was given a hydraulic set using unburnt local oceanic land deposited clays that our thought to be rich in active silicas.

For the plastering we used a lime rich mix, reinforced with horsehair, although the hair was in short supply, and we has to also use coconut husk fibres from fallen birds’ nests to reinforce the mix.

M Womersleys on behalf of the Queen Elizabeth II, Platinum Jubilee Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme, funded by the Hamish Ogston Foundation, is delivering the programme.