How can I get an enormous antique lantern restored?

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Maybe not an everyday question, but getting an enormous antique lantern restored is a pretty specialist job and the splendid antique lantern in the Bracewell Smith Hall at Cliffe Castle in Bradford presented an unusual problem.  It was so vast and in a desperately poor state of repair, such as to be unable to support its own weight.

Elegant vintage chandelier in a historic building.

It therefore needed support to make it safe to hang. Rich (one of our restorers) welded a box steel frame inside the lantern and the lantern was rewired and restored around its new frame.

Ornate decorative sculpture of a mermaid figure with intricate detailing.

It was then successfully reinstalled in Cliffe Castle, Bradford; a complex project that was preceded by a few sleepless nights. But the end result is stunning and the Fritz Fryer team relished the challenge of restoring the largest lantern most of us had ever seen.