Joiner in Neston and Parkgate

Neston has a genuinely old core and Parkgate's front is a row of Georgian and early Victorian houses looking out over the marsh. The walls are thick and often sandstone, which changes the practical side of every fixing: you are not going into a stud or a block, and a wardrobe or a run of shelving has to be fixed in a way that suits solid stone rather than drilled hopefully and plugged.

Reveals are deep because the walls are thick, so window boards are wide and shutters are common in the older houses. Those deep reveals are also an opportunity: a window seat with storage under it in a deep sandstone reveal is a proper piece of joinery and it is a job that comes up here more than anywhere else we work.

The marsh is open and the wind comes across it with nothing in the way. External timber on the Parkgate front gets a hard time, and internally it shows as draughts round old casements and doors that have moved with the seasons.

Most of the work is repair and easing rather than replacement, because the joinery in those houses is worth keeping and usually better made than anything that would replace it.

Away from the front, Neston and Willaston have a good deal of twentieth-century housing, including a lot of postwar and later detached on generous plots. That work is straightforward: kitchens, wardrobes, doors and flooring, with easy access and room to unload.

It is the far end of the Wirral from us, so for smaller jobs it is worth grouping a list together rather than one call-out, and we will say so rather than charge for a half-day visit to fit a door.