The Palladian mansion Holkham Hall was designed by William Kent and built between 1734 and 1764 by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester. Thomas was a great lover of the arts, and it is because of this that Holkham was built in order to house his extensive collection of art and sculpture gathered during his six year Grand Tour of Europe at the beginning of the century. We were commissioned by the seventh Earl of Leicester to carry out an extensive survey of the collection during 2004, which included impulse radar to help identify previous restoration. We later carried out a complete conservation and restoration programme of works during 2005 and 2006 to the sculpture in the Sculpture Gallery. Contract value range: £25-£50K Client: The Earl of Leicester To view the gallery, simply click on an image. Once open you can also run a slide show of all gallery images for the Conservation Projects section. Similar projects
Audley End House is a magnificent Jacobean ‘prodigy’ house, and is arguably the jewel in the crown of English Heritage’s East of England portfolio. Skillingtons seem to be involved here in some capacity every year, having carried out major projects to the Tea Bridge, the Lion Gateway and the service range as well as to the main house. In 2005 we won the competitive tender to carry out a major programme of work to the South Wing. The largest part of this was very sensitive mortar repairs to clunch ashlar and decorative work to a loggia. Clunch is a very soft limestone which is easily carved with fine detail, but it is this very quality that leaves it vulnerable to decay in the elements. The approach here was to preserve as much original fabric as possible by means of lime mortar grouting, fillets along loose edges, and capping over cavernous decay. The mortars had to be carefully made to be virtually indistinguishable from the stone, and were sometimes further covered by equally subtle protective lime shelter coats. Contract value range: £75-£100K Client: English Heritage Architect: RH Partnership Architects To view the gallery, simply click on an […]
The gardens at Anglesey Abbey were created between 1930 and 1966 by Huttleston Broughton the former 1st Lord Fairhaven, and may be regarded as one of the great landscape garden achievements of the 20th century. Now primarily in the care of the National Trust, Anglesey Abbey and its gardens are also home to a fine collection of garden statuary. Skillingtons were invited to tender for the conservation of a variety of architectural and sculptural items during autumn 2013, and carried out awarded works shortly after. Notable projects included in our contract were The Wrestlers, Hercules and Anteaus on the Wrestlers Lawn, and Narcissus by sculptor William Theed the Younger. The Wrestlers involved complete dismantling and rebuilding along with the installation of a new foundation; relaying of the slab pavement onto a lime screed, and last but not least a range of conservation cleaning and repair methods. In order for this particular project to run smoothly a designed scaffold was erected spanning the entire sculpture and pavement area to enable the work to progress unimpeded. The sculpture of Narcissus and pool within the Narcissus Garden were cleaned utilising a variety of gentle cleaning techniques including poulticing to reduce […]
The Silvester and Bridges tomb chests are located on the south elevation of chapel St Peter ad Vincula on Tower Green and date from the 18th century. Both tombs bear no inscriptions however historic records attribute the tomb chests to the Silvester family and William Bridges d.1714, Surveyor-General of the Ordnance. Skillingtons were invited to tender for the conservation of these tombs and elaborate on further options for their treatment during late summer and autumn 2013. Both monuments were primarily of Portland stone and came with their own unique set of problems. The Silvester tomb in particular was in a poor condition; several tomb elements had become structurally unstable due to a combination of insufficient mass and fractures propagated by corroding ironwork. In order to address their conservation the tombs had to be dismantled and the component parts of Silvester sensitively reconstructed with a combination of stainless steel dowels and carefully matched mortar repairs. In both cases we were able to retain the brick and rubble core of each tomb chest untouched. Often the core of a tomb chest or monument is discarded sometimes due to contamination however our ability to retain this important unseen component of […]
