Image: ©UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor
We are taking part in the UK Parliament online talk series about the people working to conserve Elizabeth Tower, home of Big Ben on Wednesday 27 Oct 2021 at 18:00. Our conservation specialists will be describing their journey from removing historic paint layers, discovering the original decorative schemes to the final flourishes of redecorating and gilding the iconic clock faces of Elizabeth Tower and its famous cast iron roof.
In 2017, Cliveden Conservation joined the historic Elizabeth Tower conservation project to restore the exterior and interior decorative schemes of the Tower to their original 1850s Charles Barry designs – both on and off the Tower itself. In this free online talk, our conservators will be talking about their work on the Tower, which included archaeological paint analysis and paint removal to reveal the historic build-up of paint layers applied to the clock dials and surrounding stonework.
This talk will provide further insight into the analysis of the paintwork from Cliveden Conservation who contracted the services of fellow experts Lincoln Conservation, whose fascinating process was heard about in the last ‘The people behind Big Ben’ talk.
Discover how our conservators carefully stripped, cleaned and prepared the stonework before re-painting and re-gilding the new decorative scheme on the iconic clockfaces and the magnificent metal roof to ensure Elizabeth Tower shines for years to come.
Speakers include Lewis Proudfoot (Managing Director) Alexandra Miller (Senior Project Manager) and Lukasz Kornacki (Supervising Gilder) who will talking about the many challenges they encountered during works on what has been a wholly unique and vastly complicated project – including dealing with extreme weather and working high above the London skyline.
The talk will last 45 minutes, with an additional 15 minutes available at the end to ask questions.
Book your free online ticket