Port Sunlight gallery to be restored
CLAN Contracting has been awarded two contracts as part of a £2.8m scheme to develop part of a historic art gallery.
Liverpool-based Clan will manage a series of internal and external renovations, repairs and cleaning works with a combined value of £700,000 at the south end of the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight village conservation area on the Wirral.
The project will see 5,382sq ft of gallery space transformed. The south end galleries will be returned to their original architectural design and more than 1,500 objects will be redisplayed.
The scheme will be funded through donations, corporate sponsorship and major grants, including a generous grant of £1.4m from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
A key focus of the interior aspect will see the redevelopment works carried out in the 1960s reversed, reinstating the original features and intended circulation routes of the gallery.
Detailed architrave, intricate surrounds and skirting will be re-introduced whilst partitions will be removed to open up the space and improve the circulation.
Externally, a full facade cleaning and stone repair programme will help sustain the gallery’s long term durability.
Built during 1914-22, the Lady Lever Art Gallery has listed building status therefore requiring sympathetic repairs, using traditional materials and methods in order to maintain the vulnerable stone sections of the building which can be prone to damage.
Specialists in the field of heritage building repairs, Clan’s treatment of the gallery with Stonehealth’s TORC and DOFF cleaning system negates the use of chemicals to revive the building’s exterior.
Damian Meyers, managing director of Clan Contracting said: “This is a fantastic building that requires a careful and sensitive approach to safeguard the fabric and external façade. Clan is working closely with the gallery, which will remain open throughout, to ensure minimum disruption.”
“Repairs to heritage and listed buildings form a core part of the Clan competency and it’s great to be entrusted with making improvements to this very special building. The contract was won as part of a competitive tender bid and we were selected under strict guidelines and principles.”
The Lady Lever Art Gallery houses one of the UK’s greatest collections of fine and decorative art. The improvements form part of an extensive programme of restoration and improvement focused in the South End of the gallery.
Clan has already completed work on the Bluecoat Chambers, Wapping Quays, Mermaid House, National Museums Liverpool’s Pilotage building and the Albert Dock Quayside repairs.
The model village Port Sunlight was created by Bolton-born Unilever founder William Hesketh Lever for his Sunlight soap factor workers in 1888.
