A hilltop village a mile north of Grantham, Great Gonerby is best known for the steep climb of Gonerby Hill and a Main Street lined with Georgian and earlier houses built of Ancaster stone. Handsome buildings, but stone and lime construction needs a different approach to damp than a modern brick semi.
Great Gonerby's position spares it one Grantham problem and hands it another. Up on the hill, homes sit well above the wet valley floor that keeps parts of the town damp, so persistent ground moisture is less of an issue than it is beside the Witham. The trade-off is exposure. The village takes the weather head-on, and wind-driven rain against ageing stonework and mortar joints is the classic route for penetrating damp in properties like these.
The older houses along Main Street and around the church of St Sebastian, parts of which date to the late twelfth century, are built of local limestone laid in lime mortar. Walls like this manage moisture by absorbing a little and breathing it back out. Trouble usually follows well-meant modern repairs: hard cement pointing, gypsum plaster and plastic masonry paints that seal the wall and trap water inside it. When that happens, damp shows up indoors and frost starts spalling the stone face outside.
Remedies are matched to the construction: lime repointing and breathable finishes where the building needs them, conventional treatments where later brick construction suits them. The village also has plenty of twentieth-century and newer housing, including the growth down Gonerby Hill towards town, where standard cavity-wall diagnosis applies.
Every enquiry from Great Gonerby goes to the same vetted independent specialist who covers Grantham itself, so the advice reflects local building types rather than a national call-centre script. Start with a damp survey or describe the symptom on the contact page.