Astley Castle

Astley Castle, a 12th century castle, located in Astley, Nuneaton, was a ruin before it was restored by the Landmark Trust. Witherford Watson Mann, who won the Stirling Prize for Architecture for the project, specified Kerakoll adhesive and grout for the tiling. The architects picked Kerakoll because of the company’s reputation for high quality environmentally friendly products. 

The accommodation was inverted with the bedrooms and the bathrooms on the ground floor, and the kitchen and living room on the first.

The lower level floor was tiled with a mixture of black terracotta and black quarry tiles. The same tiles were used on the bathroom walls.

The adhesive needed to be suitable for walls and floors and fully stable in the presence of water, as there were places where the tiling touched the original castle walls which were still drying out. For the same reason, a low absorption water repellent grout was specified.Kerakoll grouts contain NHL, a natural fungicide preventing bacterial and fungal growth without harmful chemicals.