Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School

We carried out a restoration project on a WWI Memorial, which included the Haberdashers’ Coat of Arms. The memorial is located at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Hertfordshire, England. The restoration project was organised for the WWI centenary.

The memorial was surveyed and then carefully dismantled on-site into three main sections for transportation to our London studio.

The Haberdashers’ company Coat of Arms, The middle section with brass plates and the base section including two carved cartouches and a carved shield with three Royal Arms golden lions. The carved and gilded flame elements were removed and protected separately.
As part of the works, we repaired a shrinkage split to the motto (serve and obey) and carved the repairs to match the existing lettering. We prepared and coloured the repairs to match the surrounding areas.
We replaced the missing cornice to the top right side of the memorial and three missing mouldings to the octagonal frames at the bottom of the memorial depicting the years 1914 & 1918.

Once the missing carving parts were replaced, we worked on the surface restoration, including gentle cleaning and repaired any surface damages. The repaired surfaces were retouched with original colour schemes.

All gilded surfaces were carefully checked and consolidated and restored where necessary.

The polychromy of the two carved cartouches on the base was beyond reasonable repair or consolidation, so we stripped the paint finishes back to the bare timber surface and re-gilded using genuine gold leaves. We have used water and oil gilding techniques following the original schemes.

The end result of the restoration is an exact match to the original in detail and finish.