How do you protect outdoor sculpture during the winter? Specialist conservation Winter Covers are the best solution to protect your garden statues from cracks, weather damage and erosion. Here are five reasons why investing in our Winter Cover is a sustainable solution to protect traditional and contemporary statuary.
Value your heritage and garden statue collection
Your garden statuary has value in all sorts of ways. Financial value is the obvious starting point, but these are works of art that have aesthetic importance and cultural meaning to us. A garden statuary collection is worth more than the sum of its parts. It has worth way beyond the pounds and pence it would cost to replace. The value of a statue starts before we even set foot in the garden and extends far beyond our lifetime.
Protect precious statuary from weather damage with a Winter Cover
Stone, marble, timber and even cast concrete are all susceptible to environmental erosion. External statuary left exposed to the elements during the harshest months will be subject to the ravages of the weather. Moisture in the form of rain, snow and our damp winter environments is the greatest agent of decay to stonework and timber. Colder temperatures maintain the damp environment and when moisture freezes, the effects of freeze-thaw cycles as water expands and melts cause damage to fragile masonry and marble. Damp environments also foster biological growth and soiling from atmospheric pollutants. High winds cause damage through airborn debris.
Prolong the lifespan of a statue
By protecting your sculpture over the winter months you will provide respite from the environment and give longevity to your treasured garden collection. If gardens are closed during the off-season / winter months, then covering sculptures may provide added security as well as protecting from rain, wind and snow. Deterioration of stone and marble is exponential. Once weak points, damaged areas and cracks open up then moisture penetrates far easier and greater damage follows. Delaying that point provides a lifeline to the statuary.
Sustainable heritage conservation
Conservation and restoration to damaged sculpture is expensive. It requires the greatest skillset from accredited conservators and stone masons, and often involves moving the objects to more suitable workshops. Cliveden Conservation Winter Covers provide protection from the worst weather that often is the cause of this damage, and the cost of one winter cover will save you the expense of conservation.
Caring for your garden statues
A set of Winter Covers shows your visitors and stakeholders that you care about your collection and with a variety of colours and possibility of printed imagery, your garden statuary collection need not fade from view over the winter months.
Our covers can’t protect statuary from everything though, and should the worst happen, Cliveden Conservation are on hand to undertake all the sensitive repairs and conservation you require.