Crick Smith

The professional wallpaper conservation service offered by Crick Smith aims to preserve historic wallpapers in situ. This may involve, cleaning and repairing, strengthening flaking pigments and papers to reintroducing missing detail if appropriate.

If it is not feasible to retain the papers in their original setting we can rescue the paper for safe storage or display elsewhere. In some cases papers can be replaced in their original setting, if the support to which they were bonded has been suitably repaired.

We currently hold an archive of the all the wallpapers salvaged from St. Pancras Chambers, The Former Midland Grand Hotel, London during its current refurbishment. Crick Smith recognised the importance of retrieving this critical decorative history evidence from the building and also of wallpaper development and design. Consequently, a rescue attempt was launched by us to retrieve all the wallpaper fragments possible before the building work began. The papers retrieved range from those used in the early 1870’s decorative schemes to those applied in the first quarter of the 1970’s.