Project: King’s College School, Wimbledon

Client: King’s College School

Barwin have successfully completed a façade repair and cleaning project at The Great Hall, which is one of the thirty buildings that make up King’s College School – one of the top independent schools in the UK. The Grade II listed Great Hall, located in Wimbledon, was designed by Sir Bannister Fletcher and built in 1899. It is a perfect example of Victorian architecture and is one of the largest school halls in England.  During World War II, the building was damaged by bomb shrapnel, and some of the damage can still be seen on the outside of the hall.

Barwin were appointed to carry out works to the façade of The Great Hall which included stone repairs, brick replacement, brick re-pointing and cleaning. The façade was raked out and re-pointed, some bricks were cut out and replaced and some were refaced. Stone repairs were carried out around the windows and at high level. DOFF and TORC specialist systems were used to remove general surface contaminates and heavy carbon deposits from the external façade. All works had to be competed with the 6 week school holiday period, therefore we had a very strict programme to adhere to. Special care was taken to protect the decorative lead lined windows.

Once the restoration and cleaning of The Great Hall was completed, Barwin were instructed by the client to proceed with further works to the World War I Memorial located at the front of the Great Hall. Our task was to restore the Memorial before the 100th anniversary of ‘The First Old Boy of Kings College to be killed’. The Memorial was built in memory of over 1000 old boys of Kings’s College who fought in the First World War. It was Lieutenant Geoffrey Pollard who was killed in action at the Battle of Le Bassee in 1914.

Firstly, Barwin had to carefully dismantle the World War I memorial and reposition it in front of The Great Hall. Then our skilled stone masons had to carve additional names by hand and redefine some of the existing names. The Memorial was cleaned using specialist DOFF System and a gentle poultice to draw the Verdigris out of the porous stone.

Scope of Works:

• Careful rake out and re-pointing open stonework joints
• Re-pointing brickwork using suitable lime mortar
• Damaged and defective brickwork was cut out and replaced with matching bricks
• Crack repairs to brickwork and cross stitching, using stainless steel reinforcement bars
• Cleaning of the building façade and monument using specialist DOFF & TORC cleaning systems