Highways engineers are being enrolled on courses to learn ancient skills to help them repair historic bridges.  The sessions, run by Shropshire Council, have been teaching engineers in the county and Herefordshire the craft of using lime mortars.  Council chiefs said many of the counties’ bridges had origins in Roman times and were bedded with mortars from lime kilns.  They burnt limestone at temperatures up to 1,000C.  Colin Richards, historic environment manager at Shropshire Council, said that although lime was a historic material, it had “great qualities of breathability and flexibility” which was good at dealing with modern needs.  He added he hoped the courses would help engineers repair bridges which had been damaged by heavy vehicles and flooding.  [BBC News, 13 Dec 2009]

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