It’s not just full buildings that benefit from Maysand’s restoration skills. In Wigan an expert team has restored both the gable end of a 17th century house and the remaining façade of a now demolished hotel.

These two historic structures are being incorporated into The Grand Arcade, a 39,000m2 retail development being built by Shepherd Construction and due to open Easter 2007.

Jason Kennedy, conservation and design officer for Wigan MBC, explains: “It’s a conservation area, so we wanted to retain existing architectural features that we felt would lend something to the overall development, to act as a contrast to the ultra modern shopping centre.

“Pennington on Millgate is a Grade 2 listed Georgian town house. It’s had various uses over the years but needed some serious remedial work so that it would form an aesthetic and integral part of the finished structure.

“The Ship Hotel wasn’t listed, but we considered the façade with its stucco panelling, terracotta and art stone to be of high architectural value and local interest too, so the rest was demolished and the front elevation incorporated into the Grand Arcade.”

Maysand’s skills were already well known to Wigan MBC’s conservation team. “With this kind of work, the nation’s heritage is at stake and you don’t get a second chance. We’ve worked with Maysand a number of times, so we knew that we could trust them to do a meticulous and high quality job,” adds Jason.

Mick Fowles of Maysand says that the Pennington gable was a fascinating project: “The brief was to restore it so that it could be ‘read’ because every opening, every blocked up doorway or joist pocket, the different roof lines, they’re all part of its fabric — they tell its story.

“We raked out the old straw and clay mortar by hand and repointed using lime mortar; concrete lintels were taken out and replaced with oak; we removed all the breeze blocks and replaced the bricked up areas with new hand-made bricks set back slightly to maximise the effect — it’s like a sort of history in relief now. It may just look like an old wall, but we’re really proud of the work we’ve done to it to restore it, to let it speak for itself.”