Hayles and Howe have been delighted to work in many Royal Households over the past twenty years. Last year the company successfully completed the conservation of sixteen Scagliola columns in the beautiful Music Room of Buckingham Palace, the official residence of Queen Elizabeth II, in the borough of Westminster, London UK.

The Music Room is part of the John Nash reconstruction of the Palace that took place around 1825. The rich blue Scagliola may have been intended to simulate Lapis Lazuli by the addition of slivers of metal including tin, copper and brass to the Scagliola. The metal effected an early corrosion causing spalling which continued through the heavy shellac varnish. Over a short period the combination of the surface varnish and internal spalling created a severe darkening in colour, concealing the beauty of the white and gold veining in the Scagliola as well as the original sparkling from the polished metal.

Hayles and Howe’s Managing Director David Harrison originally inspected these columns in 2003 following the company’s successful manufacture and installation of 28 Scagliola columns and pilasters in the Queen’s Gallery, for which the company won the ‘Crabb Silver Salver’ in 2003. The company’s technical team visited the Palace to clean back a sample part of the columns to ascertain a constructive way to restore the lovely columns to their former glory.