The Lanes Armoury's Specialist Museum Grade Restoration, Cleaning & Conservation

For generations we have prided ourselves on commissioning and providing the finest quality artisan restoration and conservation services available in the UK. Sadly, over the decades, many of these, and our, genius artisans have passed away, and there are so few that have today decided to follow in their esteemed footsteps, but we still have a few. Our late gunsmith, Dennis Ottery joined us as a gun restorer after his demobilisation from the British Army 'Green Jackets' Rifles Regt. in 1946, and he was our master gunsmith for more than 55 years, till the early 2000's.

Restoration is often a vital part to saving and preserving fine, rare or even regular pieces that have been neglected or damaged over the past decades or even hundreds of years, and by doing so we have had fantastic results that are incredibly satisfying and created a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. However, these specialist arts can progress slowly, and can be expensive, and are thus time-consuming but incredibly worth the wait and effort. Thus we do not actively undertake third-party restoration at all due to the often excessive costs and considerable time involved. It is not unknown for a specialist restoration and conservation project of a single piece to take several years

Another important factor though, is that bad and poorly executed restoration can be far worse than doing nothing at all.

Restoration is a magnificent art, and often well worthwhile for important pieces when successful, but it is not to be undertaken lightly without all due consideration.
It is important to understand all factors when considering such improvements to fine antique pieces.
We were once advisers for the restoration of our magnificent 16th century 'Brussels' tapestry, that we sold to one of the great American collectors some decades ago.
You can see it in our photo gallery, photographed on display in our Prince Albert Street shop, with Judy Hawkins, Mark’s incredibly talented and beloved late wife, standing in the foreground. Another photograph is of a specialist lady restorer's hands, working upon the tapestry. The eventual restoration cost, in today’s terms, was over £600,000, and it took over 3 years to complete. A sobering sum, often outside of the deep pockets of national collections resources, but incredibly worthwhile none the less, as that tapestry would now likely be valued in the millions of pounds.

When we undertake restoration and conservation of our pieces, it will only be on items that we have decided would richly benefit from such attention, and we will also undertake this work often for posterity, in order to save, for future generations, pieces that may well might have been discarded in their poor, previously un-restored, neglected state.

We will often contribute towards, and therefore subsidise, these conservation costs ourselves, in order to save a piece of rarity, beauty, or historical significance, for this very reason. The improvement of 'value' alone is never, ever, our primary concern, and should, ideally never be the principle desire for collectors either. It should be for the preservation of fine past craftsmanship, and to restore fine cultural heirlooms for posterity, and for the benefit of all the generations to come.

If we restore an item that was acquired from us by a client, pre restoration, be they a museum, a private collector or specialist dealer, the results can be not only spectacular, but also incredibly satisfying to know that a fine piece has been saved for generations to come, and will be an ancestral heirloom for the future

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