ABOVE: City Hall is possibly the most illustrious building in Cardiff.

Mossfords Memorial Masons’ construction division were contracted to replace the defective balusters at the top of Cardiff City Hall, a Grade I listed building. The grand city hall building was built in the early twentieth century and currently serves as the city’s centre of local government.

A balustrade course sits around the top of the building, but ongoing exposure to the wind and rain has left many of the balusters damaged and crumbling.

ABOVE: A lot of the balusters at the top of the building were irrepairable and required immediate replacement.

Our team were tasked with safely removing the defective units and replacing them with new stonework. During the initial site survey, we noted 102 balusters that needed replacing, but that number rose to 197 on closer inspection by our stonemasonry experts.

Many of the balusters were crumbling away and had completely lost their shape due to weather damage. However, some of the units had previously been covered in shelter coat, designed to prevent weather damage to the balusters. As this process had taken place some time ago, the coating was no longer protecting the pieces and many of these also needed replacing.

Ian Williams Ltd

Portland Stone

Jan 2019

Acorn Property Group

Speller Metcalf

Pennant Stone

£16m

July 2017

DEVELOPER

MAIN CONTRACTOR

MATERIAL

PROJECT VALUE

DATE

ABOVE: The balusters were cut using our CNC lathe – all 197 of them.

We used Portland stone to create the new balusters in our Cardiff production facility, matching the existing stonework and design of the original pieces. Our stonemasons then securely fitted the replacement units onto the building.

BELOW: The new balusters on site awaiting fixing.

ABOVE: Fixing the new balusters secure to the balustrades.

BELOW: Extreme caution was taken when working at the top of the building especially after finding some of the worn balusters were loose on inspection.