Conservation At St Bartholomew’s Hospital

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William Palin, who is responsible for supervising the conservation of the historic James Gibbs buildings at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield, invited me over to take a look.

An intricate web of scaffolding has been woven through the these mighty structures to enable access to the ceiling for the restoration of the Great Hall and the cleaning of William Hogarth’s murals on the staircase, so I put on a hard hat and climbed up to take a closer look.

Afterwards, Will outlined the nature of his undertaking to me.

‘We’re sitting in James Gibbs’ North Wing that dates from the 1730s. It’s a fantastic building of incredibly significant architecture with two spectacular interiors, the Great Hall and the Hogarth Stair. It has not been well looked after for the past thirty years, so we have a lot of problems.

Bart’s Heritage has taken lease of the building from the hospital and raised the money to do the first phase of conservation of the envelope of the structure, with around half coming from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

This consists of repairing the stonework, the brickwork, one hundred and sixty windows, stripping the roof slates back and laying new lead. For the interiors, it is a loving conservation project using the best experts and craftsmen from around the country, with training and apprenticeships built in at every level. They will be cleaning, repairing and redecorating the surfaces, and we will be reopening in September next year hopefully.

The Great Hall will then be splendid and open regularly to the public for the first time in its history. Until the end of January, you can join a Conservation Tour to go up onto the deck and watch the restoration of the ceiling and the Hogarth Stair in progress, meet the conservators and get a feel of what the project is all about.’

 

Click here if you would like to take a tour and learn more

 

‘Bird’s nest’ scaffolding supported by external trusses fills the Great Hall

Steps up to the roof

The letters B and H are interwoven on the ceiling as the insignia of the hospital

The temporary deck installed for the restoration of the ceiling

The plan of the ceiling design

Early ground and base coats revealed

Wooden panels honour donors in the eighteenth century

Paint samples for the repainting of the ceiling

A crack caused by water ingress

A cartouche with a grotesque face high up on the wall

The good Samaritan and his charge as portrayed by Hogarth and viewed through scaffolding

Jesus at Bethesda viewed through scaffolding

A wealthy woman seeking healing viewed through scaffolding

Poor women seeking healing viewed through scaffolding

The grand chandelier from the staircase has been removed for restoration

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