In the portico on the west front of St. Paul's Cathedral are two small and forgotten ironwork grilles by the master smith Jean Tijou. These would have been made as original fittings in the first decade of the eighteenth century, and owing to their protected position, should have been in good order. However, in their wisdom, the ecclesiastical engineers saw fit to discharge a sewage vent through one of the openings, with the result that one half of the right hand grille had dissolved into thin air.
Our task was to put the grilles back in order. The surviving mask and leaves were in reasonable condition, requiring only a bit of brazing, but we decided to replace the left hand mask completely, along with about 25% of the grille. The rest is pure blacksmithing, Just let me say that we were proud to be able to use some of our recycled charcoal iron for the new mask, very ably repouseed by Baptiste Deleau, and for replacement husks -laser cut!
To repair the grilles-we were able, to persuade them to remove the offending pipe-we were not, so I'm afraid someone may have to do this work again in 50 years.
