These late Victorian windows with Georgian glazing bars and glazed swept-head lights had survived 4 major renovations to the Grade 2 listed original building. Initially built as a stable block for Ascot Racecourse, the building was converted for use by the Tote in the 1930’s and now serves as a hospitality space for horse owners and trainers.
The windows are large; around 2.5 meters wide and nearly 4 meters tall. They’re also tricky to access; the sills are around 6 meters up from the pavement outside and 2 meters up from the internal walkway. So scaffolding inside and outside was the first thing to get organised.
From the scaffolding, we could make a good assessment of the windows condition. The sills looked worse for ware, along with some of the sash bottom rails. The glazing putty needed fairly extensive replacement and there were some concerns about the structural stability of the windows in the openings.
We kicked the work off by addressing the structural issues first. The windows couldn’t fall outward as they are fitted behind the brickwork, but with no masonry or decorative finishes holding the windows from leaning in, they had very slowly been making their way backwards over the years
To clear some room, we removed any remedial pointing between the frames and masonry, leaving only the original lime pointing. We could now see that the windows were held in place using cut nails, fitted into timber grounds in joints between the bricks. Over time, several of the nails and timber grounds had rotted so we needed to push the frames back into their original position, re-fix them and repoint to the brickwork.
Fortunately, there was a wall opposite the windows forming a vaulted corridor. We were able to use the wall to fit props and persuade the frames to move tight against the original lime pointing. We were then able to fix the frames firmly into the brickwork.
To finish, we used lime to point up the gaps.
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