In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:

I dunno. Both this house and its other half are the same - but not all in
the street. It's likely they've been repointed at some time in their 130
year life? But before I bought it - and it didn't look new then. Some 30
odd years ago. Nor can I imagine the previous owner paying one farthing
more than she could get away with. ;-)

My 100 year old one hasn't been repointed for the most part.
I've done a few small areas which need it (including one where
some wally tried repointing with pure cement), but most still
doesn't and is the original. Probably depends heavily on the
quality of the original lime mortar, the local environment,
and making sure anything like broken guttering gets quickly
fixed.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]