We were first contacted in 2022 about the possibility of restoring and reinstating the rear entrance gates to Clooney House. Clooney house was originally built in the 17th century and after a fire in the mid 19th century was rebuilt. The gates were part of this 19th century rebuild. While now in ruins, having been vacant since the 1920’s there are ongoing efforts to restore the house.
When we came to inspect the gates in their current state we found them next to the piers from which they once hung, being overgrown with vegetation. It was immediately clear that they were in a state of disrepair with many of the original castings missing, some of the vertical bars and their forged finials broken off and missing as well as the decorative scroll work at the centre of the gate above the front stiles broken off, likely due to corrosion.
Once we had removed the gates from the site we had them sandblasted so a more thorough assessment of the damage could be carried out. Having assessed the damage to the gate we stripped the gate to its bare components in order to carry out all necessary repairs. As is common with ironwork of this era everything was made to loose tolerances and the resulting gaps of mating components filled with molten lead which had to be melted out as part of the disassembly.
This involved making a closed die for use under the power hammer to replicate the original finals, having the missing castings replicated, forging a new latch, a new slam plate, new drop bolt and the missing decorative scrollwork. All newly forged pieces were made using recycled wrought iron.
Before the blasting was carried out there was remnants of the gates original green paint found and based on this the gates new colour was determined.
Once we had carried out all the forging, repair work and painting we rehung the gates from the freshly restored piers
