Project Description

Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich

King Charles Building

The Old Royal Naval College, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, is now a World Heritage Site.

Works were undertaken to the King Charles Building to preserve the external appearance and create internal space for use by the Trinity College of Music.  This work was undertaken with the utmost care to ensure both the interior and exterior of the buildings original character, features and workmanship were retained.

Our Company’s involvement in this project included floor strengthening, sash window restoration and timber works.

The floor strengthening involved removal of the floorboards to expose the timber joists and beams, which were then strengthened using steel plates, bolted insitu to the large beams, thereby enabling remaining beams to be strengthened.   Existing defective timbers were repaired insitu using splices and bolts.  All floorboards were numbered on removal thus allowing them to be replaced in their original position and no beams were removed ensuring that the history of the building was retained.

As with the floorboards, the sash windows were removed and numbered to ensure they were replaced in their original position.  Whilst removed the windows were assessed by our Site Manager and a Heritage Architect to decide what repairs were required to be undertaken.  Splice repairs using English Oak to Rails, Stiles and Glazing Bars were carried out, open and loose joists wedged and re-glued.  Existing window frames were assessed and repaired as necessary.

Whilst removing the sashes from the frames all ironmongery (brass sash chains, pulls, wheels and fasteners) was removed, tagged and sent off-site for cleaning.  On completion of the repairs and the return of all the cleaned ironmongery, the windows were weighed and checked against the existing lead weights to ensure correct balance, adjusted as required and re-instated into the original frames.

Irreparable box sashes were replaced with exact copies, thereby retaining the original appearance and integrity of the building.