Laleham AbbeyLaleham Abbey is a grand Georgian mansion house built by the Earl Of Lucan and is now Grade 2 listed. It was converted in the late 1980's into luxury apartments rather cheaply and with little consideration for maintaining the theme of the property throughout the conversion. This resulted in the use of modern fittings such as standard sized doorways adjacent to the oversized originals and the lowering of ceilings to run services through which resulted in hiding the original ornate plasterwork and cornice features. The building also suffered considerably from dry rot and woodworm which was covered up in the conversion and has been the subject of much litigation to date. Our client had purchased one of the two ground floor apartments which had some of the grandest features seen in this property. He was the second owner and the first owner hadn't touched the flat at all during their occupation. An architect was commissioned to come up with a plan to make the apartment work in its original context, restoring features to make it feel contemporary to its Georgian heritage. The ceilings were removed and services rerouted, doorways were made bigger and a new doorway was added which linked the main living room directly with the kitchen. Whilst doing this work, more dry rot was uncovered in many areas but in particular behind the plastered panelled walls to the grand living room. All the rot was removed and treated and ornate plasterwork reproduced to match the original. Steels were installed in the basement to support the rotten joists where they had originally sat into the external wall. All the joinery such as skirtings and architraves were made to match along with the doors and many other features. All the plaster mouldings were copied from the originals and reproduced using traditional techniques. |
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