How do you make a 167-year-old, Grade II listed building look as good as new on the outside?
The answer is just as daunting as you might expect: You clean every brick on the building, repairing and replacing where necessary, while replenishing the mortar as you go along!
For a landmark, city centre building the size of Wrexham’s County Buildings, with its castle-like walls of locally quarried stone and its forest of turrets and chimneys, the scale of a huge task like this can appear overwhelmingly formidable.
Luckily, we’ve brought in the experts!
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A team with historic experience
Midland Masonry are no strangers to restoring and conserving historic buildings. In fact, it’s very much their speciality.
The Shropshire based company are part of the assembled team of contractors currently renovating the County Buildings, the home of Wrexham Museum.
The work is being done as part of a major project to transform the building into a ‘museum of two halves’, a new, state-of-the-art national attraction which will house an enhanced and expanded Wrexham Museum and a new Football Museum for Wales.
For specialist work of this kind, it can be a real advantage to be familiar with the building you’re working on,
Introducing stonemason, Andy Bickley, the very same Stonemason who worked on the museum building during the last major renovation project, back in 1996.
Andy explains: “When we first worked on the museum building in 1996, the stonework hadn’t been cleaned for a very long time. Some of it had actually turned black.
“Back then, we used chalk dust powder mixed with air and water at very low pressure to gently clean all the stonework. This cleans the stone blocks without damaging them and leaves all the original masons tooling marks untouched. This time around, we’re just giving the stonework a steam clean to wash off any dust, moss and algae.
Bringing the building back to its best
Andy continues: “There’s actually been two of us working on this since we started in October. I deal with repointing, which involves cutting out the mortar or cement around each stone block, then replacing with lime mortar. The new mortar is similar to what would have been originally used on this building and is actually much better than cement. It’s porous and breathable, which helps to protect and preserve the stonework it surrounds.
“As well as replacing the eroded/missing mortar, we also repair and replace eroded/decaying stones where we feel it necessary to help preserve the surrounding stonework. My colleague Nick then steam cleans the stonework and we move on.
“We start from the top and slowly work our way to ground level. The whole process will take around five or six months.”
The Wrexham connection
“Prior to working on the museum, we worked on the refurbishment of Wrexham’s Markets. This is another local building we’ve worked on before. In fact, this was one of the first projects I worked on as a stonemason, back in 1992.”
There’s a good reason why locals often comment on the museum building as looking ‘distinctively Wrexham’; the stones for the original building were sourced from a quarry in Cefn Mawr, just a few miles away.
The quarry has long since closed down, but the easily recognisable, sand coloured stonework can still be seen on well-known building across the city and in the wider county. Including the Butchers Market and the walls of Wynnstay and Plas Power estates.
Cllr Paul Roberts said: “Wrexham’s museum building is one of the city’s most recognisable landmarks, therefore it is essential that the job of preserving the building is carried out to the highest quality. With these experienced specialists on site, we can feel rest assured that the building is in safe hands. It will be quite a sight to see whole exterior of this magnificent building cleaned, restored and looking as good as new when the new museum opens in 2026.”
A new national attraction for Wrexham
The project to create a new ‘Museum of Two Halves’ in Wrexham city centre is now well underway!
Building work has now commenced on the iconic, 167 year old, Grade II listed County Buildings in Wrexham city centre – the home of Wrexham Museum since 1996.
When the building reopens to the public in 2026 it will be home to an enhanced and expanded Wrexham Museum, alongside Wales’ first ever football museum.
With new, state of the art galleries and a fully refurbished and extended building, the museum is set to be a world-class new national attraction for Wrexham, drawing thousands of visitors from all over Wales – and beyond!
The new football museum will celebrate Welsh football, past and present, in all its diversity, from grassroots clubs to the national teams, as well as highlighting Wrexham’s historic achievements in the sport and celebrating the rich heritage of the County Borough.
New galleries will be created to display the Wrexham Museum collections, which means an enhanced experience for visitors and a first-class, modern venue for discovering the fascinating and eventful story of our region of North-East Wales.
