Stone Work, Repair, Maintenance

ST STEPHEN'S CHURCH HAMPSTEAD, 2014
LSC started working at St Stephen's in January this year. Over the last fifteen years, the St Stephen's Restoration & Preservation Trust has tirelessly endeavoured to save this Hampstead landmark, their work being recognised by English Heritage's 'Heritage Angel Awards'. LSC's role has ranged from dismantling and making safe the roof sculptures to the meticulous cleaning of the interior columns. We are particularly proud of our most recent commission to conserve and repair four carved corbels.
One of our first challenges was that the panels were originally carved in Monks Park Bath stone which is no longer quarried.
To repair the panels LSC explored a range of alternative stones, testing samples to find as close a match as possible. Gentle hand cleaning of the stonework revealed its true nature from which we colour matched our repairs to blend seamlessly with the original material. Areas that were to be jointed with the new stone were carefully cut back to a sound base before being drilled for insertion of stainless steel dowels to secure the sections in position.
Our carvers then worked with wax to model missing sections of the panels. To ensure these replacement sections matched the design and style of the original carving - especially the figurative sections  - this work was done in situ at St Stephens. Our craftspeople made study sketches of the remaining panels to form a repertoire of shape and form for the new stone elements.  Detailed archive photographs provided by English Heritage showed the missing sections upon which we also drew to develop our models.  
LSC is proud of the final result and the feedback we have received from our client. We look forward to continuing to work on this magnificent building.