Restoration Policy

Our cleaning process predominantly uses non abrasive cleaning agents to dissolve and remove discoloured waxes and grime. However, where elements have suffered mechanical damage or the breakdown of the surface marble and consolidation is required, the restoration process is predominantly effected by hand using abrasives similar to those used for creating the chimney-piece originally.
Great care is taken to ensure that as much of the original integrity or history of the chimney-piece is retained, and thus wear and tear resulting from the use of fenders/fire tools etc is retained together with those minor abrasions and chips.
More substantial repairs are effected in the Georgian manner by the means of cutting in square blocks of matching marble and working these down to match the existing mouldings. More substantial structural repairs require the sourcing of matching marble and reconstructing elements to match. Sourcing such marble can be problematical in that many of the coloured marbles used to create Georgian chimney-pieces are now scarce, but we have extensive stocks of our own and are usually confident of locating supplies of even the rarest marbles from antiquity.
For prototypes for re-construction refer to the Research & Consultancy page.
Where chimney-pieces require sections of marble recarved, this is effected by our sculptor working in conjunction with surviving elements using plaster moulds, profiles and scale drawings.

*Note: we do not undertake on-site restoration work, but will undertake the removal of chimney-pieces (subject to the provision of all necessary permissions: listed building consent etc), effect their restoration, pack and crate and store until required for re-installation.