Over the years we have been back to Ealing in London many times. We have installed many new Victorian tiles, as well as restored many hallways and pathways as well.
The Victorian tiled hallway in the pics below is one we have recently finished restoring in Ealing W13
This is a straight forward black and white checker board design and there are many of these in Ealing. We find them on pathways and hallways and its always the 5 cm tiles both in the body and the border. There are some more colourful original designs around but allot of them are like this one
As you can see this one was in a state of disrepair and most of the tiles had come loose at the back. So we did what we could to fasten tiles and repair the screed in patches so that there was some place to walk and so that we did not loose the design layout by taking up all the tiles at once.
Why do Victorian hallway tiles come loose?
In allot of restoration work we will find loose Victorian tiles. In this one the homeowners children where picking the tiles up and playing with them 🙂
Usually its a few here and there that come loose which is fairly normal and simply a result of the age of the tiles and screed. We find these tiles lock each other into position as they where traditionally laid closely together with no grout lines. However occasionally some get loose and cause surrounding tiles to loosen as well.Â
However this one had underlying damp issues which caused the screed to loose integrity causing the surface of the screed became very dusty and crumbly which loosened the tiles.
Above is a nice pathway we installed several years ago in Ealing.