Mews living is compact, sociable and quietly handsome, but it comes with a short list of jobs that never quite goes away. Granite setts, cast-iron gutters, narrow courtyards and shared drains all wear at roughly the same pace, and they tend to fail at the same times of year. Work with that rhythm rather than against it, and the whole thing becomes manageable. Here is a calendar that fits the way mews properties actually behave.

Spring: Cobbles, Drains and the First Proper Clean

Wait for the last hard frost, then walk the courtyard slowly. Winter has been doing quiet damage for months, and it shows up in small ways before it shows up in expensive ones. Look for:

• Jointing between setts that has crumbled or washed out, leaving stones that rock underfoot
• Gully gratings choked with grit and last year's leaves – lift them and clear the silt beneath
• Damp staining on brick at the base of downpipes, which usually means a leaking joint above
• Paving that has dropped or lifted along a drain run, often the first sign of a blockage
• Algae or moss on north-facing cobbles, which turns genuinely slippery when wet

Sweep and scrub rather than blast. A pressure washer on its highest setting strips jointing, opens gaps between setts and leaves the whole surface looser than it was. Use low pressure with a fan nozzle, or a stiff brush and hot soapy water, and refill the joints with kiln-dried sand afterwards. Pull weeds while the ground is still soft. If a section needs repointing, check what the original jointing was before you buy a bag of mortar – the wrong mix on a historic surface is hard to undo.

Summer: Gutters, Brickwork and Courtyard Planting

Gutters are the quiet workhorses of any mews terrace. Blossom, seed heads and grit collect through late spring, so clear them once now and again in early autumn. The hopper head – where two roof slopes meet a single downpipe – is usually the first to overflow, and the first place to check after a heavy shower.

Then check where the water actually lands. A downpipe that discharges straight onto setts will erode the jointing in one spot within a season or two; a shoe directing water onto a grate or into a channel saves the surface entirely. Small things, but they compound.

Courtyards get hot and dry fast in summer, and pots need water early in the morning rather than in the heat of the day. Group containers so they shade each other, and keep an eye on climbers – jasmine and ivy are lovely until they find a gap in a gutter or a crack in a wall. Trim anything that blocks a gully, a drainage channel or the line bin crews need to walk.

Autumn: Leaves, Gullies and the Run-Up to Winter

This is the season that catches people out. One downpour after a dry spell can push a summer's worth of leaves into the nearest gully in an afternoon, and in a mews with mature trees nearby that gully is often the only one serving several houses. Clear weekly through October and November, and fit leaf guards or baskets to downpipes – then remember to empty them, because a clogged guard is worse than none.

If your mews has an archway, treat it as a funnel: everything blows through it and settles just beyond. Check the low spots in the courtyard for standing water after rain and note where it lingers. That is your shortlist for a drainage contractor before the ground freezes.

Winter: Frost, Grit and Protecting Surfaces

Water expands when it freezes, so every hairline crack in jointing widens a little each winter. Get mortar and sand repairs done in autumn, not in January.

Rock salt melts ice quickly but is harsh on some stone, on mortar and on nearby planting. Grit or sand improves grip without the same chemical effect, so use salt only where ice is genuinely a hazard, and sweep up the residue in spring. Never chip ice off setts with a metal edge – you will take the face off the stone. Keep drainage channels clear of piled snow so meltwater has somewhere to go, lag outside taps and exposed pipework, and if you are away for a long stretch, leave the heating on low and ask a neighbour to glance at the courtyard.

Shared Surfaces: Who Maintains What

Many mews houses sit on a private road with shared drainage, shared gutters along a terrace and a communal bin store. Responsibility for those usually rests with a freeholder, a management company or the leaseholders collectively, and the split is set out in the lease.

Before you repoint, reroute a downpipe, plant against a shared wall or install a water butt, check the lease or ask the managing agent. Clearing a shared gully is cheap when neighbours split it and costly when nobody does. If something looks structural – a dropped drain run, a wall that has moved, water appearing where it shouldn't – bring in a qualified surveyor or drainage specialist rather than guessing. For anything touching structure, boundaries or shared liabilities, take proper professional advice.

Keep a simple log, too: date, job, who did it, a photo. It settles the "was that ours?" conversation and it is genuinely useful when you sell.

A Year at a Glance

1. Spring – walk the courtyard after the last frost, clear gullies, top up jointing sand, wash setts at low pressure, check plants for roots near drains.
2. Summer – clear gutters and hopper heads, check downpipe discharge points, repaint external timber, water containers early in the day.
3. Autumn – sweep leaves weekly, fit and empty leaf guards, note where water ponds, book any repointing or drainage work.
4. Winter – grit rather than salt where you can, keep channels clear of snow, lag pipes, protect the access route.

None of this takes long when it is done in the right order. Put two reminders in the calendar – one for the spring walk-round, one for the week the clocks go back – and the rest tends to follow. Mews properties respond well to a light touch applied regularly: a swept gully, a topped-up joint, a cleared hopper. Ignore them for a few years and the same jobs become a project.

Photo: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels