Restoration of A W N Pugin Staircase at Bilton Grange School

In 1846, when the owner of Bilton Grange, Captain Washington Hibbert, decided to extend his Georgian farmhouse, he engaged the services of the celebrated Victorian architect AWN Pugin.

Pugin designed a number of outstanding features including the magnificent oak staircase.

Shortly after the work was completed in 1887 Bilton Grange became a boys boarding school and more than a hundred years of small boys and their trunks thundering up and down the staircase resulted in the three flights of cantilevered stairs becoming structurally unsafe.

Acanthus Clews were conservation architects and project managers because of the nature of the work. The dual task was to make the staircase safe whilst restoring it to its original appearance.

The whole seven ton oak staircase was supported on purpose-designed scaffolding to allow a detailed structural inspection and the repair work.

Within a conservation strategy of minimum intervention the work included repair and cleaning plus restoring the panelling and carved mythological animal newels.

An additional decorative flourish involved hanging the stairwell with hand-printed wallpaper from an original block designed by AWN Pugin and installing purpose-built lamp holders to relight the finished space.

The resulting restructure was thoroughly tested and approved by Rugby Borough Council.

The nature of the project owes much to the inspiration of the current Headmaster, Quentin Edwards, head of the pre-prep Margaret Edwards and the generosity of the Bilton Grange Old Boys Association.

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