External repairs and redecoration including signwriting

The requirements

Formerly the Cambridge & County Folk Museum, the Museum of Cambridge is one of the oldest social history museums in the UK. The museum, a three-storey 16thcentury timber framed building, is housed in eight rooms in the former White Horse Inn, a public house that closed in 1934.

The museum presents the lives of the people of Cambridgeshire from 1700 onwards and houses a unique collection from household objects, paintings and toys to Fenland folklore cures and customs.

The museum is supported by Cambridge City Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Cambridge Museum was looking for a reliable and experienced team to carry out a number of improvements to the museum.

Works included external painting, pre-paint repairs, roof tile replacement, window repairs and signwriting.

How we helped

We liaised with the museum, our paint supplier ICI Dulux and Cambridge City Council to ensure the colours selected for the outside of the building complemented the existing surrounding buildings.

To help agree on the most appropriate colour choice, ICI Dulux used their new IT software to download a photo of the museum and then render different colour options from their Heritage range.

The museum is situated on a very busy crossroads in the old parts of Cambridge. We worked closely with the Highways Agency to decide on the safest place to erect the scaffolding, taking into consideration the flow of pedestrians and traffic.

The museum wanted to remove their existing advertising signs and create something more prominent, especially the one facing the main road. We commissioned a professional sign writer to design the new signage, and once the new style had been agreed, the work was carried out utilising the access equipment we already had in place.

The results

The project was completed within the timescales required, within the budget stipulated and to the highest quality standards.

Now, with the bright new building exterior and brand new signage, the museum has been given a new lease of life and complements the surrounding buildings nicely.

Since the completion of the project, the museum has been attracting many more visitors than it has in previous years, much to the delight of the museum and Cambridge City Council.

“We are very pleased with the work. The money spent was well worth it; not only for the outstanding finish but also the fact that people used to walk by and not realise we were a museum.” The Museum of Cambridge