The Ironart team were asked to restore this balcony balustrade which graces the facade of an elegant Georgian town house in Clifton Down, Bristol. Jason and Olly carefully disassembled the entire balcony and transported it back to our workshop in Bath to assess and repair.

The first step in this process was to blast off the many layers of ancient, encrusted paint which revealed delicate dovetail joints and precise halving joint details within the original wrought iron structure. It was clear that this balcony was originally made by highly skilled blacksmiths using time-honoured traditional forging and joining techniques. Sadly the process of removing the old paint also revealed some poorly executed, clumsy attempts to make repairs.

Dom and Jason from the Ironart team set to work, carefully unpicking the sections and refurbishing them. Six of the ‘ring and star’ details which sit below the top handrail had been poorly copied in the past or were broken. We carefully removed one of the best preserved originals and sent it off for copy casting so that we could replace where appropriate. Many of the delicate lead star details were also misshapen or completely missing, and the balustrade needed a new set of feet.

The timber and balcony brackets were refreshed by the building contractors on site. Once our repair work was complete and the balustrade had received a reviving coat of appropriate paint, Rick, Jason and Olly were responsible for the refit – putting everything back together on site as it would originally have been installed.