book restoration

We undertake sympathetic restoration of all types of bindings, recreations of older style bindings, ledger and vellum bindings.

One off sentimental items are always welcome such as family Bibles, family papers and photograph albums.

Only the highest quality materials are used when restoring books and we always aim to keep as much of the original binding as possible and always retain labels and inscriptions often found on end papers and flysheets. If re-binding is necessary then we strive to do so in a manner as close to the original as possible.

before and after

Family Bibles

CASE STUDY 1

Nuremberg Chronicle - a complete restoration

This rare 15th century volume was in very poor condition and had also been subjected to a flood. The pages were water stained and the binding very badly damaged. Every folio was washed in an alkaline solution to both neutralise the acid content of the paper and remove the water stains. Any damage to the paper was treated and the spine folds strengthened in preparation for sewing. The sections were sewn in the original style on five double hemp cords on a traditional sewing frame.

New leather was grafted onto the boards and a new corner was fashioned in the same style as the remaining originals. A new protective brass edge for the corner was attached. The boards were laced on with the new hemp cords and oak wedges were inserted to hold the cords tight. A new leather spine was put on and when dry, tooled to match the original.

CASE STUDY 2

restoration of a large photograph album

This project for the Royal Marines consisted of combining two badly damaged photograph albums into one new album. There were many loose pages and extensive damage to the page edges as well as loose material and damaged photographs.

We removed as many photographs and captions as possible to re-mount onto new black museum board. The new album leaves were hinged together and a complete new leather binding made. The leather was gold embossed with the Royal Marines crest and re-tooled similar to the original album.