Description:
Restoration of a major Georgian building to provide office, receptions and banquets accommodations. Detailed restoration based on historical evidence, which included copying door cases and reinstating the original colour schemes. The upper storeys of the rear wings, which were added in 1926 were demolished and replaced with new office accommodation displaying plain classical elevations in the manner of the surviving lower storeys of the original office wings. The lavatories and lift were removed from the central courtyard where elevations similar to the original have been reinstated. The main block was thoroughly restored including the repair of the external stonework and reinstatement of the glazing bars to the original pattern in the St. James's Pace entrance front. The main rooms at ground and first floor level have been painstakingly restored on the evidence of detailed historical research. The missing door cases, dados and other joinery details have been replaced with copies of the originals using measured drawings and photographic evidence, and the missing chimney pieces are being remade as exact copies of the originals to be reinstated in the near future. This detailed restoration included the reinstatement of the original colour schemes, based on scrapes taken from the site.