Member Article

NE companies team up to preserve buildings

Darlington-based Stone Technical Services (STS) has teamed up with one of Teesside’s longest established companies for a major project in the North West.

STS has recently started heritage repairs on one of Southport’s most celebrated and historic streets which is undergoing refurbishment as part of plans to restore it to its former glory. Lord Street is one of the town’s most popular shopping destinations and is home to various well known retailers housed in Grade II-listed Victorian buildings.

As part of the refurbishment plans, a variety of historic decorative features are needed and STS is working with Middlesbrough-based William Lane, specialist castings experts with over 150 years’ experience, to repair and recreate the features.

William Lane was established in 1862 and is the only remaining ‘foundry’ business in Middlesbrough, specialising in iron, brass, bronze, gunmetal and aluminium castings.

STS chose to work with the company, on Forty Foot Road in the town, thanks to their vast experience in reproducing decorative heritage features for the likes of the Flying Scotsman, the Transporter Bridge and Beamish Museum to name just a few.

MD of STS, Dave tone, said: “As a company STS is passionate about the preservation of traditional skills and those that do that. There are very few of us left and we must encourage the next generation to adopt these skills and enter the heritage sector. William Lane has over a century of amazing experience and have exactly the same company ethos as STS. The foundry staff pay the most exemplary attention to detail and are vastly experienced in restoring structures of historical importance. We are really delighted to be working with them on this intricate and fascinating project.”

Stuart Duffy at William Lane said: “We were really pleased to be able to offer our very specialist skills to STS’s work in Southport and it is great that two North East companies can team up on such a project. Preserving not just sites of historical importance but traditional skills too is very important to the heritage of our country and, like STS, that is exactly what we are trying to do.”

STS are experts in the field of historic restoration and maintenance projects and work with various churches, councils and schools around the UK as well as the likes of English Heritage and the National Trust and on buildings such as St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Hall and the Royal Courts of Justice.

STS is working to restore and repair the period décor at Lord Street in Southport alongside Sefton Council. The work includes repairs to the historic verandas across the shop fronts and the restoration of cast iron features, the re-glazing of the canopies and the refurbishment of heritage decoration.

STS is made up of four divisions - STS Lightning Protection, STS Restoration, STS Maintenance and Facilities Management and STS Conservation- and employs a team of 40. Darlington brothers, Dave and Grahame Stone, established Stone Technical Services in 1998 and now have offices in Edinburgh city centre, near Stockport in Cheshire and in central London as well as their HQ on Kellaw Road in Darlington

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Anna Addison Associates .