Althorp

Conservation Update - A Living History

Before the dust had time to settle, the scaffolding contractors arrived to begin the complex task of constructing the vast top-hat scaffold, which now envelopes the entire roof of the West Wing and has been cleverly designed so as not to rest on the fragile fabric of the house itself or the delicate flagstones around the perimeter of the building.  With this now complete, the delicate conservation work has begun in earnest.

The task of stripping lead, ready for re-use, has begun, along with the work to pin the virtually unique mathematical wall tiling back to the building.  The tiling was applied to the original Tudor red brick house when the first Earl Spencer instructed Henry Holland to transform Althorp in the 1770s, by giving the impression that the exterior of the House was constructed with white brick.  White brick was deemed too expensive and so the mathematical tile was proposed as an alternative.  The tiles were made in a kiln near Ipswich.

The cladding of Althorp started in 1788, but unfortunately, more than 200 years on, the nails securing the tiles have reached the end of their life and so it is now necessary to pin them back to the building, using stainless steel pins.

It has also become necessary to replace the lead roofing to the west wing which was last replaced in the 1950s. During the course of the work, graffiti showing the names of the Estate staff that carried out the work have been found and a number of the families of those skilled men still live and work on the Estate, some 60 years later.

Details will follow as we make exciting progress.

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