also needed further hand painting on J top of the printing in order to gain the necessary finish to the glaze texture. Each colour underwent a drying process before the next application, finishing with a final enamel firing at 82°C for two hours. The colours were developed from the standard range of on glaze colours from Cookson Matthey of Stoke-on-Trent by a process of mixing and testing which took two months. A strict timetable was absolutely necessary in order to complete this complex manufacturing process on time as all works on the project had to be completed within the12 weeks of the summer recess. But the best laid plans etc .... several days into the on-site conservation work an accidental but fortuitous discovery was made. The existing brickwork behind the panelling of the window reveals had always posed something of a problem. This had been spotted on the original tile survey and their dimensions simply bore no resemblance to the sizing of the rest of the tiles in the scheme. For a long time this obvious inconsistency was ignored; however, an accident with a scaffolding pole on the night shift (which no one owned up to!) knocked a small piece of brick out of place exposing the familiar green and white glaze. The brickwork on all of the reveals was carefully taken clown exposing a well preserved original tile scheme running up to the stone architrave. There were, however, a handful of tile B type missing, and astonishingly these were yet again of a different size - this time 178 mm X 196 mm. Another screen was commissioned and the manufacturing process restarted as a matter of urgency! On-site conservation The conservation team consisted of a senior conservator and two assistants, and because of the constraints imposed by the time schedule work on the tiles had to be carried out along side and around all other craftsmen and contractors, stonemasons, plasterers, electricians and demolition. Dusty conditions and poor lighting sometimes made working difficult. However, the contractor, Wallis, macleevery effort to provide the best conditions possible for all concerned. Before any restoration work could start the tiles needed conservation cleaning. They were covered with a thick coating of a brown tar substance, no doubt left over from the many years used as a smoking room. The grout, originally white in colour, (unusual for Context54 June1997 Victorian tiles) was now a very dirty dark brown. Some discussions centred around whether the grout should be kept, but visually it was poor and health and safety considerations had to be taken into account because the new use of the room was to be a food servery. By the same token, any tiles which were considered to be too contaminated with ingrained dirt were to be replaced - fortunately this was very few. The tiles were washed with a non-ionic detergent diluted 60 ml:5 litres of tap water using soft cloths and a minimum of water. The grout was softened with water and then scraped out. The tiles were then buffed dry with soft cloths. All damaged areas of ceramic then had to be made good with polyester resin coloured with a white pigment. The hardened resin had to be smoothed or shaped to a perfect profile. When this was complete the missing parts of the design of the tile were hand drawn in with the aid of a series of stencils made from sample tiles. We did find on many occasions that the stencils did not quite line up, showing that the manufacturers had originally used a number of different blocks, not all of which were exactly the same. The next stage was to fill in the missing colours by hand using a cold epoxy glaze coloured with artists' pigments. The colours had to be remixed with each tile as the originals had a wide variance of colour tone from tile to tile. Layers of colour also had to be built up in order to gain the right depth and translucency. New white grouting replaced the old, which gave the scheme a brightness and coherence. The tiles were finally coated with two coats of micro-etystalline wax in order to seal and protect them. This is not a usual practice, but in this instance, because of the proposed use of the room, waxing was thought to be expedient. The conservation works took three to four weeks, with a final visit and check on the works immediately prior to opening- a sensible and reasonable precaution undertaken by the contractors. The manufacturing and restoration programmes on these important tiles were considered to be a success, a good balance having been struck between the necessities of the building and its users and retention of the historical integrity of the original materials and interior design. LeslieDurbin is with Thejackfield Conservation Studio, Ironbridge, Shropshire. Thefutureis now: an update David Lermon describes the latest developments in the Orion Heritage Management system specifically written for use by historic building conservation professionals. The story so far Award winning Orion Imaging developed (in association with Monmouthshire County Council) a listed building database with unbeatable imaging, enabling an unlimited number of pictures (photographs, slides or plans) to be stored and recalledagainst individual building records. Following the writer's previous article for ContextSl (September 1996 pp 26-27), there has been great interest from UK local authorities, and from as far afield as Australia, in the concept of a multi-featured listed building database. It is a testimony to the quality d Context that so many readers obviously take the trouble to study the articles published for their benefit. Meanwhile, the Orion listed building database has a growing number of local authority and other users, and there have been many improvements, with more to come. Better imaging - documents Partly as a result of an ongoing imaging project for the Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland in connection with its listed building database, imaging functionality has been improved, and image capture is now possible from a variety of scanners as well as digital cameras, both still and video. As well as incorporating images (eg slides, photographs and plans), it is now possible to include document imaging which is available as a discrete module. It has always been simple to link outgoing correspondence and spreadsheets in all major fo1mats with the listed building database, and a new option now exists to scan incoming correspondence, plans and reports, using a compact keyboard scanner or traditional flatbed scanner The document imaging module is easy to operate, and supports multi-layer filing capabilities (with up to five subfolders), allowing straightforward and 25
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=