New Church Organ gilded using 23ct Gold Leaf

New Church Organ gilded using 23ct Gold Leaf, the new organ was not completely built from scratch from recycle equipment from the previous organ for use in the new instrument. The old pipes were refurbished and re-installation in the new organ. The new organ features hand carved wood ornamentation that is then gilded using 23ct gold leaf.  

 

It’s with great sadness we learnt today, the passing of Robin Abbey

It’s with great sadness we learnt today, the passing of Robin Abbey in Edinburgh on Saturday 17th August .

 

Robin has been not only a customer of Wrights of Lymm for 50 plus years, he has also been a good friend, a great exponent of the craft of signwriting and a gentle, gentleman to deal with.  All at Wrights of Lymm will miss his cheerful Southern and Scottish accent and we are all grateful and richer for knowing him.

 

Wrights of Lymm Team

Japanese Folding Screen Restoration using Gold Leaf and Silver Leaf

A pair of lost Japanese folding screens portraying the 1614 winter campaign of the Siege of Osaka have been brought back to life after painstaking work to reproduce them, including their original colours, using digital technology and an artisanal touch.

The restored artefact is a left-and-right pair of six-panel folding screens. The two painted sections are about 6 meters wide and about 1.7 meters high in total when they are placed side by side.

Under the supervision of experts, the project members restored the original colours with the help of digital technology. After an image was printed on paper, artisans manually placed gold leaf and silver leaf and other materials on it to give it a 3-D look. It took one and a half years to complete the work.  

 

 

The Golden Gates restoration by Hall Conservation Ltd

The Golden Gates underwent a full major restoration by Hall Conservation Ltd, starting in September 2018 and was completed in June 2019. Cast by Coalbrookdale in 1862, the gates were originally designed for the international Exhibition and potentially for Queen Victoria’s Sandringham home in Norfolk. Unfortunately, her majesty was diverted from their trade stand, as clearly visible through the gates was a cast iron statue of Oliver Cromwell. Coalbrookdale had found it difficult to find an alternative market for the gates on this scale and they went into storage for over thirty years. 

 

In 1895, Frederick Monks, a councillor of Warrington and a partner of one of the country’s leading manufacturers of iron and steel, bought the gates and gifted them to Warrington Town Hall. 

 

The gates were last worked on in 1979 by Campbell Smith & Co. It was then that they were gilded and became iconic as ’The Golden Gates’. Before the works begun in 2018 the gates were severely corroded and structurally unsound. All painting and gilding had failed, castings were missing and loose.

 

The work involved dismantling the gates entirely and transporting them to the Hall Conservation Ltd workshop in London. Months of cleaning, conserving, repairing and recasting took place before any painting and gilding. Once all items were painted and gilded, they were then transported back to Warrington and re-installed in time for Walking Day on the 28th June, a celebration which happens annually to mark the opening of the gates.