Stone conservation students at City of Bath College have unveiled a second, fully repaired 19th century statue that used to have pride of place in Bath city centre.
Last summer, students on the Architectural Stone Conservation course celebrated the successful conservation of a precious statue of a Grecian lady, thought to have been created around the 1820s.
The statue arrived at the College’s Construction Skills Centre in hundreds of pieces covered in more than 50 layers of paint. It was painstakingly put back together and cleaned.
A second statue, of a Greco-Roman Muse, has now been restored by the college’s trainee conservators in the hope that the pair can be reinstated in The Corridor in the centre of Bath.
Working at the College’s Construction Skills Centre, the students remade the second statue’s hands, including all the fingers, and refixed one of the arms. They also made a new scroll that she was holding.
The statues are currently at Bayntun’s Bookshop in Manvers Street, Bath.
Nigel Bryant, the lecturer who runs the College’s Architectural Stone Conservation course, said: “It is a great privilege to continue working with the Bath Preservation Trust on this and other projects – such as the Nexus Chapel and the Rebecca Fountain next year. These projects also help the College and the students to forge links with professional bodies and the local community.”
For more information on the Architectural Stone Conservation course contact Nigel Bryant on 01225 334806 or email bryantn@citybathcoll.ac.uk