Church monuments are a diverse group of commemorative structures and objects, both within and outside churches, cathedrals, chapels, and other places of worship. They range from humble plaques and stones to the most elaborate structures and sculptures produced demonstrating some of the world’s best craftsmanship.
Skillingtons have specialist skills in surveying, deconstructing, conserving, and reinstating memorials of every kind and on every scale. Our experts can save the most damaged, fire-ravaged, and decayed of monuments and bring them back to structural stability, inscriptional legibility, and aesthetic quality. Church monuments are made of a range of materials, including fragile and imported stone types, elaborate metalwork, and painted or gilded surfaces, all of which Skillingtons have specialist skills for dealing with.
We are experts at assessing the entire building environment and the impacts this is having on monuments and, where needed, we can commission technical and scientific investigation of monuments, their settings, and any surface decorations remaining to inform our methodology.
For the specialist treatment of monumental brasses by our in-house experts, Skillington Lack, please visit the Brasses page. See also our page on Churchyard and Cemetery Monuments.
To learn more about an important medieval effigy we conserved at Barrow upon Trent in Derbyshire, watch Dr David Carrington explain in this video from the Church Monuments Society: