Thatchers are one of the UK’s most prominent cider producers so it is unsurprising that they would venture into the publican world. Thatchers purchased The Railway Tavern as their flagship pub situated at the front of their cider farm. To get it ready for their thirsty customers they had to refurbish the pub which included a fabulous dining area made of green oak and glazing which overlooked the working environment.
Oak Apple Frames manufactured the green oak frames which made up the dining area and were one of our main points of focus for this project. To bring the frames back to a high standard we used a specialist oak blast cleaning method which achieved our desired result before glass was fitted. To ensure that we didn’t interfere with the building schedule we took on our aspect of the project during the weekends.
In addition to the green oak frames we also restored the old cider brewing vats ready to be used as a wonderful feature to their new establishment in Winscombe.
Why not go along and check out the results for yourselves and enjoy a nice glass of cider at the same time.
We have worked on a number of projects for Grade II listed buildings in which if we are restoring the masonry or timber materials we use specialist softblast cleaning techniques to ensure that there is minimal impact on the building.
For this project we were required to start the restoration on an ancient door; we had to remove the layers of distemper, gloss black paint and creosote. It was amazing just how many layers of gloss were actually on this door. By using our softblast machine with calcium used as the medium we were able to gently remove each layer at a time to reveal the wonderful original surface.
After finishing our soft blasting the door was then ready for some remedial work by a carpenter, and also be treated for work and rot so that it can be preserved for another couple of hundred years.
This project perfectly demonstrates the importance of understanding the material which needs to be restored and also the importance of the object as this assured us that softblast techniques were the only route to use.
