The summer of Altus volunteering continues! We visited the iconic No 1 Royal Crescent on two separate occasions, to clean, de-rust & paint the railings for Bath Preservation Trust.
Janey Abbott, Marketing & Communications Officer at Bath Preservation Trust commented:
Bath Preservation Trust was founded in 1934 as a small pressure group, with the object of protecting the city’s unique architectural heritage. Its first action was to fight plans to pull down parts of the picturesque Georgian city of Bath, England, to make way for a new road. The road was never built. Since this victory, the Trust has saved hundreds more listed buildings from demolition, and has successfully confronted many similar threats to the city. Today the Trust has approximately 1,400 subscribing members from the UK and overseas supporting its work.
Much of the Trust’s work involves engaging with those whose decisions determine the city’s future, inspecting and responding on planning applications in the conservation area and to listed building consent applications, providing informed statements at planning meetings and expert witnesses at Public Enquiries.
The Trust is also a major provider in the tourist economy as it owns and runs museums and educational activities at No. 1 Royal Crescent, the Museum of Bath Architecture, Beckford’s Tower and the Herschel Museum of Astronomy, all of which have been restored by the Trust and provide a valuable resource for the city and its visitors.
A team of volunteers from Altus generously gave their time and efforts to re-painting the black railings in front of No. 1 Royal Crescent in August 2019. No. 1 is a Georgian townhouse museum revealing what life would have been like 250 years ago, in Bath’s heyday as the most fashionable city to visit outside London. Room guides – sometimes in costume – share the stories of the day and you can see authentically decorated rooms both upstairs and downstairs.
On two (exceptionally hot!) days the team stripped, wire-brushed and re-painted the wrought iron railings. People visiting the museum were very impressed and they added to the part by donning tricorns to amuse passers-by. The Trust’s Facilities Manager Jill Hunter was extremely impressed with their work, saying “It was a sheer delight to have the guys from Altus help us in this way. They were enthusiastic, diligent, keen to give it their best, and kept us amused with their happy banter all the time. A great gang of really lovely people. Good workers, too!”.
