These included emergency repairs to bridges on the M1 where reinforcing rods were rusting, dislodging lumps of concrete on to the motorway as they expanded. There was also underwater restoration of the Coral Island theme park in the Virgin Islands. "Most dramatic, seven years ago, was the removal of a 95-year-old coating of bitumen from inside the Statue of Liberty," says Bennett. "A caustic poultice made the bitumen water-soluble. I'd had to deal with a similar problem only a few months before in Hampshire."

More recently, he has invisibly restored damaged plasterwork in Highclere Castle and advised on the use of lime mortar in the foundations of Southwark's Globe Theatre. "But," he says, "while it's nice to namedrop big buildings, I am every bit as excited by a small cob cottage. In fact I get even more buzz from it - there's none of the politics that goes with the prestige projects."

Bennett is equally impassioned when talking about his dislikes. These include officious building regulations. "Rather than working as a minimum standard they have become the standard - everyone is building down to them," he says. They go and make you dig concrete footings 3ft down even if you're sitting on bedrock." Probably his biggest dislike is the modern obsession with raking out perfectly sound lime mortar, only to repoint with visually intrusive, impermeable cement. "But that's enough of my hates - now you've got to have some of my loves," he concludes.

"I love old buildings and I love the people who are attracted to them. I do enjoy the people I work with - that's one of the lovely things about the job." His greatest love of the moment is a tiny cottage deep in the New Forest, which he is restoring for a rock star. "It's built entirely of local materials," he explains. "just lime-rendered chalk and straw cob walls, and poles of hazel and oak, none of them more than two inches across. It's got no plumbing, no electricity, no central heating, just a socking great fireplace. It's so simple, so fundamental - and it's lasted 300 years."