fountains
Coalbrookdale
A number of leading foundries were the main providers of fountains for public spaces, these include The Coalbrookdale Foundry, based in England and the Scottish Foundries of the MacFarlane and Sun Companies. Lost Art Limited retain catalogues and documents from each of these. It was often the case that, rather than installing fountains that were exact copies of those in their catalogues, companies, the components of previously produced fountains were combined to produce new designs that were unique to a particular location.
The images below show an historic image from the Coalbrookdale Foundry, featuring a newly produced fountain, followed by examples of other fountains produced by the company, different in apparent design but sharing a number of common elements.
All that remained of the fabulous fountain in Albert Park, Middlesbrough was the lower bowl. However, all the pumping equipment etc was also missing.
Our historical research for the restoration of the fountain enabled us to identify the fountain as having been produced at the famous Coalbrookdale Foundry in the mid 19th Century.
Our archive research produced historic illustrations and photographic details of the fountain and also of similar fountains that were also produced at Coalbrookdale and are still in existence. In particular, the fountain shared a number of features in common with a fountain that we had restored in Redditch.
From these details and following site visits to existing fountains to identify components of existing fountains that were shared with the Albert Park fountain (Coalbrookdale produced fountains that were individual in appearance and construction, but would interchange component parts to achieve this) a working method was identified.
The replication and restoration of the Albert Park fountain involved a combination of taking liftings and dimensions from component parts of existing fountains, utilising component parts recovered from the original fountain, utilizing component parts from our own archive of patterns and component parts in addition to producing new patterns based on photographic evidence.
Starting from the base upwards and producing new castings, many of which were later gilded in 24 carat gold, we were able to restore the fountain to its former glory, eventually securing a nomination as one of the best fountains in the country.