Case Study
St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
Dorothea craftsmen have helped bring a new lease
of life to the metalwork in and around one of London’s most iconic buildings –
St Martin-in-the-Fields.
St Martin-in-the-Fields
on Trafalgar Square is a landmark building, familiar
to millions both as a church and as a community facility which hosts activities as varied as concerts, a café, and a programme of social care services.
As part of massive £36 million restoration project, Dorothea Restorations has restored nearly 200 metres of Victorian cast iron railings as well as key features inside the church building itself.
This massive metalwork project started in 2005 with a consultancy project to identify the most appropriate techniques to first remove, and then repair, these feature railings.
Work started on site in January 2006, with the removal of all 186 linear metres of cast iron railings. Although the objective throughout was to maintain as
much original material as possible, the top cast rails were so badly damaged throughout that replicas were required, cast in a ductile iron to be a lot stronger than the old grey iron. To balance this out, the entire bottom rail was retained and extensively restored – work which took 18 months in all and included the use of a wide range of techniques including plate repairs, metal stitching and welding.
We also manufactured new sockets for the railings, and worked closely with
the masonry team to anchor these into new concrete footings, with stone
(a combination of original and new) being laid around.
Inside, a wrought iron font rail has been cleaned, repaired and reinstalled, and an original altar rail has been fully restored and repaired – but also reshaped back to its original design, having been straightened at some point in the past.