Having finished the harling there was a bit of course stuff left over and the tools needed washing. so both the remaining render and the tool washing water was put in a barrel and, with the addition of more lime, turned into limewash,  of course, the limewash was gritty but that is exactly as I wanted – I normally put stone dust into the first coat of limewash when doing roughcast to help fill out the texture, the bigger grit, I knew, would just sink to the bottom but the finer stuff would stay in suspension and be perfect for the first coat.

The only problem with gritty limewash is the clogging up of the brush but I have found that cheap 6 inch wall brushes don’t clog up and if you hold two in your hand you can make really good progress.