Church to private home

A survey was undertaken by Boquio Iron & Glass to record the state of all the windows in the church, those in the dwelling portion started first. Being traditional stone lined window openings an extremely accurate template was taken as there was no room for tolerance. The windows were completely rebuilt using existing stained glass wherever possible and a close matching glass sourced for the remainder. An unusual feature of these windows was a vertically sliding pane, running in a bronze channel with a locking mechanism. The wrought iron grill was forged by hand, with the vertical member penetrating the horizontals and all caulked to the stonework with lead. All was then pointed in a special lime mortar and a specified sand.

Stithians Methodist Church Handrails and Railings

These works are typical of modern health and safety requirements for old buildings. With the existing set up the two handrails either side of the granite steps terminated with a newel post one rise and one tread short of the path level. This last portion of steps flared outwards and necessitated the new extended handrail to follow this profile. These cast iron newel posts were found to be broken which necessitated drilling and pinning. Replacement vertical wrought iron bars where necessary were added and caulked in with molten lead. All the existing uprights and handrail were stripped along with the front railings and gates and were given a high specification paint finish by Farrow & Ball in a colour typical of traditional Methodist Chapel decorations.

St Illogan Church

The existing wrought iron overthrow and associated lantern support decorative work was in a sad state of decay, indeed some of the scroll work was missing. The challenge was to reproduce what might have been there based on the existing corroded remains. The copper lantern atop was totally renovated including hinge and base repairs, door rebuild and previous bodges made good. Then all was reglazed with polycarbonate sheet and as there was no lighting being refitted, opaque film applied to all faces. The comments from local people passing was amazing and we were told this was the first time the lamp has been in position for 30 years.

St Trevenson tubular bell working mechanisms

A fairly unusual arrangement for church bells inasmuch as having tubular bells struck with a wrought iron hammer striking arrangement mounted horizontally on a vertical shaft. This required to be totally renovated to a full working order. This necessitated the whole assembly, some three metres long, being removed from the bell tower, across the upper congregation mezzanine level and then lowered to the ground. This assembly was taken back to the forge, straighted, bearings repacked with grease, wire brushed to remove rust and then repainted. It was then returned to the church, reinstalled in the tower ready to ring for many more years to come.

Traditional fire welded and tenoned grill

Enquiries come in from far and wide, some customers you never actually meet but with modern communications this is not a problem. A far cry from the village blacksmith serving just his village! We received an email enquiry about making a replacement wrought iron grill for one that had rusted away. Strict sizes had to be adhered to for the existing patterned quarry tiled surround could not be disturbed or replaced. So a template was made, an outer frame forged in one piece and fitted inside. A scroll jig was made, 24 scrolls forged, 12 pairs of scrolls fire welded together and tenoned to fit into the frame. All was painted, posted off and received much to the delight of our electronic customer.