Restoration
St Matthias
Church
Peter Bowyer & Parish
Paye Stonework and Restoration
£126,192
Richmond Upon Thames, London
Designed by Sir Gilbert Scott and built in the 1850’s Grade II listed St Matthias Church with its magnificent spire is a wonderful example of Victorian architecture.
Paye were employed to carry out extensive repair and restoration of the listed elevations that included a conservation clean, replacement of eroded Kent Rag stone walling and the reinstatement of missing Elm Park carved heads and crockets to the entrance doorway and pediment.
These hand carved embellishments had been lost and replaced with plain copings, similarly carved heads had all but eroded with little detail remaining. Paye provided sketches and hand modelled clay Marquette’s of the features to be re-carved for approval which were carved using traditional masons craft skills and hand tools.
To facilitate the reinstatement of the new carved masonry, existing stonework required careful cutting and reworking and new stonework secured using stainless steel dowels, bedded and pointed up using lime mortars and grouts.
Intricate repair and replacement were also carried out to the rose window requiring careful cutting back of stonework to the glass line to remove damaged masonry. New carved stone was secured using stainless steel threaded dowels drilled into the original stonework.
The ornate stonework had been neglected leading to erosion of fine detail and loss of masonry. The original carved crockets over the main doorway had been replaced with plain copings.
New hand carved crockets and heads were reinstated as part of the cleaning, repair and conservation project along with reinstatement of the missing cross to the gable and Kent Rag stone walling.