W.I.Sargent

 

Bill Sargent is one of the country's foremost exponents of the art of pargetting, following on from a tradition of conservation plasterwork and pargetting started by his grandfather in 1926. He is the second generation and his son Kenny is the third in the family.

Pargetting is ornate plasterwork done in-situ free hand, on the exterior of buildings, in the still-wet lime render. The work is drawn on with a small trowel and then built up with the addition of hair in the lime plaster as a fibre. The work is then brushed back into the wall to take out any sharpness and lime washed.

Bill is only happy it seems when his work looks about two hundred years old. Most of his work is done in a Jacobean style after a stone or wood carving. Mainly birds and animals but especially friezes round the tops of cottages, grape vines etc. Most of his work will start off with an animal whose legs turn into a vine – a hare or dragon perhaps, guided of course by the clients's request. It would seem that this old craft is enjoying a rapid revival in this country, so much so that Bill is taking on commissions far outside of his native East Anglia!