September 2025
It has been a really active month as a very major project for the MoD winds down. H+R have massively contributed across the board on the project in terms of the full range of services that are currently available in-house. This is relatively rare and presented an excellent opportunity to mobilise the whole team and also to cross-train in real time. Everything from chimney capping to doors and gymnasium floors were covered. A fantastic opportunity to deploy holistically for three months as Building Pathologists
In the meanwhile, regular clients such as the Church of England, Crown Estate, National Trust, Oxbridge Colleges, DFSS, the private sector, Local Government and many others continue to provide a constant stream of interesting challenges
It has been really gratifying to see the completion of the £7.6m refurbishment of the John Rylands Library in Manchester, completed in its 125th anniversary year. Major changes include two remodelled galleries and a bronze entrance portal, sculpted to resemble the pages of a book. The materials used – European oak, red sandstone from north Cumberland and dark bronze ironmongery – echo the original structure. The scheme was led by Donald Insall Associates with Nissen Richards Studio. The library was founded by Enriqueta Rylands as a memorial to her philanthropist husband, John Rylands (1801-88), a weaver who went on to build a huge textile-manufacturing business. The library, the third largest academic one in Britain, became a part of the University of Manchester in 1972 https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/
In addition, we celebrate the opening of the North Wing at Barts Hospital with the splendid principal staircase, hung with paintings by Hogarth. The wing is now fully open to the public for the first time since it was built in 1732, following a £9.5m conservation project which relied a great deal on H+R’s expertise in historic timber https://bartsnorthwing.org.uk/
