Our Norfolk Workshop Receives a Royal Visit

30th November 2016

We were honoured to welcome His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales to our Norfolk Workshop on 30th November 2016 to see students from the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community’s Building Craft Apprenticeship scheme in action.

The Prince saw the Building Craft Apprenticeship students, Christian Accolla and Daniel Iannone using their stonemasonry skills and helping restore a historic mosaic. As part of their placement with Cliveden Conservation the students have been working on a number of heritage projects in a workshop environment and onsite.

Over the past four weeks, the students have been involved in the preparation process of carefully removing the mosaic, which is thought to be from the redecoration performed by Sir Charles Allom in the 1930’s, from Stanford Hall to be restored at the workshop. This work is part of the estate’s transformation into the new Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre. The students have been making substrates, including cement and lime mortars, ready for creating the new panels and fitting on site.

Lewis Proudfoot, our Stone Section Manager, and alumnus of the Building Craft Apprenticeship scheme fully supports the Prince’s Foundation initiative.

“We were honoured that His Royal Highness visited our Norfolk workshop to see the students learning new skills. Every year we support the Prince’s Foundation by giving students apprenticeship placements and the opportunity to work with our skilled craftsmen. The scheme allows the students to work with some of the UK’s best heritage companies on prestigious projects – giving them invaluable experience for their careers ahead.”

During the royal visit, our team and representatives from the National Trust spoke to His Royal Highness about some of their recent projects together. The Prince  heard  about award winning restored 18th century Gothic Tower at Wimpole, the replication of St Pauls Walden Bury statues for Stowe School and restoration of the Nicolas Stone 17th century Hillingdon Venus for Cranford Park.

Simon Sadinsky, Head of Education at the Prince’s Foundation said,

“We are tremendously grateful for all the support that Cliveden Conservation has provided to our Building Craft Apprenticeship programme. Today has provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the importance of having placement providers as dedicated as Cliveden Conservation, as well as the courses like our Apprenticeship programme that can foster these vital professional development opportunities. During their time on placement with Cliveden our students have been able to get hands on tuition from a talented group of craftspeople, not to mention participate in some incredible projects. Schemes like this are helping to keep this sector alive, and attractive to new talent, not to mention securing the future of these traditional crafts.”