People who know about old houses/ renovations - why are my walls this colour?

[SarahAndQuack]

I've been stripping the wallpaper in my house, and the wall underneath is pink and slightly flaking. I'm assuming this is residue walllpaper paste? Is that right?

I've also stripped a patch where there's a greenish, powdery stain on the wall, about 2.5 square metres - it looks sort of copperish, if you know what I mean? What is that about?

The house is pre 1750 and a lot of the plaster is lime. The pink stuff is on the lime plaster and the green is on an internal wall that's been re-done more recently and is ordinary plaster.

Any ideas?

Could you take a pic? Asbestos in our ceilings was green so hopefully it’s not that

Plaster is pinkish

Damp?

Look up Distemper, could be something to do with that? That’s sort of powdery

The green powdery stain sounds like damp to me, we had this in an old house that was built in 1850..whereabouts is it, from floor level?

@5thnonblonde

Could you take a pic? Asbestos in our ceilings was green so hopefully it’s not that

I don't think it is that kind of green, but I admit I'm a tiny bit worried.

Careful with anything you disturb. Some of the green pigments contained arsenic if they are from the Victorian or Edwardian era.

@5zeds

Plaster is pinkish

It's on the lime plaster, though, which isn't pinkish. It's quite a strong pink, too.

@GreyhoundG1rl

Damp?

We definitely do have damp, but this doesn't seem to match up with it? Basically, we've got an outside-facing wall, which is mostly lime plaster, where the pink stuff is. The wettest its of that wall are where someone's patched it with modern plaster and where it's over a crack in the floor, and neither of those bits lines up with the pink.

The green is on an internal wall, and it must be a result of materials used as it is a quite defined square patch of green. It'd look as if there had been a window there or something like that - because it's so neatly defined - except that it's an internal wall so it presumably isn't.

@User2638483

Look up Distemper, could be something to do with that? That’s sort of powdery

Annoyingly, when I google pink distemper walls, I get suggestions for fancy Farrow and Ball paint colours!

But it could be. If so, do I need to remove it all before I repaint?

@Craftycorvid

Careful with anything you disturb. Some of the green pigments contained arsenic if they are from the Victorian or Edwardian era.

I'm fairly sure it can't be that old, because it's in such a discrete area and the rest of the plaster around it is modern. I'm not totally sure?