Roughcast

Roughcast or pebbledash is a durable coarse plaster surface used on outside walls that consists of lime and sometimes cement mixed with sand, small gravel and often pebbles or shells.

Variety can be obtained on the surface of the wall by small pebbles of different colours, and in the Tudor period fragments of glass were sometimes embedded.

[2] Though it is an occasional home-design fad, its general unpopularity in the UK as of 2006[update] was estimated to reduce the value of a property by up to 5%.

[citation needed] This exterior wall finish was made popular in England and Wales during the 1920s, when housing was in greater demand, and house builders were forced to cut costs wherever they could, and used pebbledash to cover poor quality brick work, which also added rudimentary weather protection.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, the central tower of St Albans Cathedral, built with Roman tiles from Verulamium, was covered with roughcast believed to be as old as the building.