In 2017, we took on an 18-month restoration project to restore the whole of Sockburn hall.
From the Cornice is the small servant quarters to the intricate ceiling on the gallery landing, we had a huge challenge on our hands to restore this beautiful 18th-century Victorian mansion.
Unfortunately, the building was set to be demolished after it had been derelict for over 60 years until our client took it upon himself to buy and restore the property to its former glory.
The work we carried out:
We were instructed to start within the 6 bedrooms of the hall, which consisted of traditional Lath and Lime plastering then to fully restore all original cornice.
We started with the bedrooms first, these were an original plain run cornice with ceiling roses to match.
Next, we moved onto the living areas which were 3 huge rooms, Kitchen, dining and living room, all 3 had their original bespoke cornice which was like nothing we have seen before. The dining room cornice was made up of small shields/crests that represented the first family’s name who lived there!
The main living area had a huge cornice made up of 4 moulds, that room alone took us a whole month to complete
Once completed, we started working on the entrance hall/ gallery landing, which was our favourite part to do. This consisted of replacing the 18th- panels, all of which we pieced together on site.century Jacobean ceiling, this was made up of over 30 ceiling
After the Jacobean ceiling was completed, we carried out major repairs to the 6-meter archways, including huge Corbels which had fallen and smashed into pieces, this was like a jigsaw puzzle having to restore piece by piece.
Once finished, this defiantly did bring back the wow factor as the ceiling is the first thing that catches’ your eye as soon as you enter the hall. Truly spectacular.
