One of the monuments of High Victorian art, the great choir screen made for Hereford Cathedral is a masterpiece in the Gothic Revival style. It was designed in 1862 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, a leading Victorian architect, and made by the Coventry metalworking firm of Francis Skidmore. Before installation in Hereford Cathedral, the screen was a star exhibit at the 1862 International Exhibition in London and was praised as a triumphant example of modern architectural metalwork.
Although celebrated in the 19th Century, the screen fell from favour in the 20th Century. It was seen as ugly and incongruous in a medieval building and held to form an unacceptable barrier between the congregation and the chancel area. In 1967 the screen finally fell victim to fashionable anti-Victorian prejudice. Despite a national outcry and the protests of John Betjeman, Nikolaus Pevsner and many others, the screen was dismantled and sold to the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery in Coventry. As funding proved unavailable, the Herbert Museum gave it to the V&A in 1983.
In May 1999 the commission for project managing the conservation and installation of the screen was awarded to a specialist team led by Purcell Miller Tritton.
Restoring the screen is the Museum's largest ever conservation project to date, in both scale and cost. Thirty-eight conservators have cleaned, painted and reassembled the screen, over a period of thirteen months. The cost, over '800,000, has been met thanks to the generosity of private individuals and trust funds, with matching support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Structural coherence had been lost when the dismantled screen arrived at the V&A. Many decorative parts were loose or even missing. The originally vivid colours of the painted elements were muted and disfigured by rust and much of the paint was flaking off. Not all materials were badly damaged - timber and hardstones were least affected - but the mosaics were in a sad state of decay.
Gilded and painted ironwork, lacquered and polychromed copper, brass and zinc are some of the metals used on the screen. To reveal the sound metal below the loose, flaky or pitted surfaces, air-abrasion was used. Fine jets of abrasive powder (aluminium oxide) were sprayed over the surface to produce a bright finish. The iron and copper surfaces were painted with a metal primer and an acrylic consolidant (paraloid B72) - these isolate the modern restoration from the original painted surface, so that all added painting is reversible. The screen is now on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.