Camden Town Hall
Client: London Borough of Camden Council
Principal Contractor: Lendlease
Architect: Purcell
Package Value: £4.9M
The Grade II listed Camden Town Hall was designed by AJ Thomas, a former assistant of EL Lutyens and is a neoclassical style building with Portland stone ashlar over a steel frame. The purpose built town hall features a grand entrance with stairs and an assembly hall on the ground floor, and a council chamber and mayor’s parlour on the first floor. Over the course of time the building suffered from weathering, dirt accumulation and Regent’s Street Disease, the name given to the corrosion of the underlying steel causing damage to the stone. Camden Council began a programme of restoration works on site in 2020 extending over 3 years, and Szerelmey Restoration were able to secure both the external cleaning, repair and restoration package and the internal package of cleaning and repair. Before any works commenced an extensive survey was carried out on the external elevations of the building and a series of exemplar cleaning samples and testing to ascertain the correct cleaning methods to use on both the stonework and areas of glazed brick. These methods consisted of nebulous, doff and jos to remove more stubborn areas of dirt and staining.
To address the damage to the stonework caused by Regent’s Street Disease, the external works also included the careful removal of badly damaged areas of stone to expose the steel work below. New stone was pieced in to match the existing Portland and in situ mortar repairs were also carried out. Internally the team have cleaned all of the existing retained marble floors, walls, staircases and ceilings, and have cleaned and repaired the scagliola. They have removed and reinstated existing marble to facilitate new door openings, and completed wholesale refurbishment of marble flooring to the ground floor. New Purbeck paving has been installed to the entrance lobby, new bronze stair nosings have been installed to the grand staircase and porcelain tiles have been installed to the wedding lobby. The marbles selected by the client include Stataturio Michelangelo, Magic Brown, Belgian Black and Nero Storm.
