Victorian columns restored at York Art Gallery

A team of expert, traditional plasterers working at York Art Gallery have restored two ornate Victorian columns as part of the ongoing £8m refurbishment project at the venue.

The columns, which date back to 1879, have been fully transformed to their former glory due to the work by craftsmen from Pudsey-based Ornate Interiors.

Ronnie Clifford, Ornate Interiors explained that the columns were previously “obscured by cladding applied during a previous refurbishment of the venue and each originally featured four scroll effects and four ladies’ faces.”

He continued: “These features, carved from sandstone, had been chiselled off to make the cladding process easier however we used the services of a modeller, renowned master carver Dick Reid employed by York Museum Trust who we have worked with many times, to make a clay mould in-situ at the gallery.”

Designed by York architect Edward Taylor, York Art Gallery first opened in 1879 to host the Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition. The venue is set to reopen in the summer after the completion of an extensive multi-million pound internal and external restoration lasting two and a half years.

A new mezzanine level will become a new first floor above the main gallery within the original roof space of the building and will form part of the Centre of Ceramic Art (CoCA).

£3.5m of the funding came from the Arts Council through the National Lottery. Other significant tranches of finance for the restoration work was provided by private legacy (£2 million), the City of York Council (£500k) and the Anthony Shaw Trust (£400k).

Acting on behalf of contractor Simpson of York, Ornate Interiors’ work at the venue involves the reinstatement and restoration of mouldings using both fibrous and in situ moulds. Additional traditional lime plastering placed upon brickwork & laths and some restoration of existing plasterwork also formed part of their workload.

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