Dedicated as Lost Art employees are to the restoration of historic landscape features, it is always a pleasure to add a new feature to our repertoire. The other aspect of our work that we relish is a new challenge. In the case of this recent project we were presented with the opportunity to combine these two pleasureable aspects of our work.
The bandstand in South Marine Park, South Shields had long since been demolished when the decision was taken to restore the park to its former glory. Our challenge was therefore to reproduce the original bandstand, based only on historic photographs. Our joy knew few bounds.
Starting from the historical photographs, our researches identified the original maker of the bandstand as the famous MacFarlane Foundry and from this we were able to progress to identifying the original component pieces of the bandstand.
Although the company produced many original bandstands, they often combined features between the different designs - a sort of Victorian pick and mix in cast iron.
Having identified the components we were then able to reproduce patterns in order to allow the foundry to cast the new components.
Over a six month period the project slowly took shape, until we were left with a park feature of which we feel justifiably proud.
