Transforming Shakespeare’s New Place is the largest project the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has undertaken in 50 years, so we took great care to find a suitable construction company who held the very varied skills the project demands. Following a robust tender process we appointed Splitlath Building Conservations Ltd from Hey-on-Wye. They are a family run business who focus their work on historic conservation and restoration work and have been a part of the building trade since 1867.
Splitlath were the perfect fit for our project because of their expertise in historical conservation, as so much of our project is based around restoring and protecting the Grade 1 listed Nash’s House. Splitlath have already completed the hempcrete work to the panels on Nash’s House, the extensive internal beam and staircase repairs as well as the lathing work for the insulation in the ceiling. They also replaced the wooden balustrade in the Knot Garden.
We had a chat with some of the builders on site, and asked what their favourite thing about working on a historic building was. They replied that it was “simply the care and time that goes into restoring an old building is worth more effort than the quick work that goes into a new building. Finding exciting parts of history is also great fun and something that doesn’t happen ordinarily on a building site. It’s great getting to use the old techniques, which makes for an interesting change of pace every day.”
Last year Splitlath completed an award winning conservation scheme at The Walronds in Devon. Other recent prestigious projects include The Master’s House in Ledbury and St Michaels & All Angels Church in Herefordshire.