Work will start next month (March) on returning Sandiway’s historic Round Tower to its original roadside site.
Latest pictures from conservation specialists Grosvenor Construction Company show that the former gate lodge to Vale Royal Abbey is almost half rebuilt.
And when the landmark resumed its place alongside the A556, its sandstone will look as fresh as it did when it was built in the early years of the 19th century.
Said Mr Rory Moore Director of the Kinmel Bay-based company: “Much of the stone was damaged on impact with the car and we were faced with the prospect of a patchwork effect if we used new stone with the old.
“We decided to re-work the stone to give it a new and consistent face. It has taken us more time to do this but we have managed to salvage much more of the original fabric of the Round Tower than we originally thought was possible.”
Grosvenor craftsmen have been painstakingly reconstructing the Gothic Lodge in North Wales and over 450 blocks weighing around 15 tonnes will be used when the landmark takes its place again in Sandiway.
Guided by details of the original, discovered by Cheshire archivists, they will have completed each course before transporting it back to Cheshire in numbered blocks to begin phase 2 of the project.
The company’s craftsmen have worked on a wide range of conservation projects including a Welsh Long House for a BBC TV series, Denbigh and Rhuddlan Castle’s, Chester’s Roman Walls and Tower’s and the city’s 12th century St. John’s Church.
But said Rory: “We may well have worked on larger projects but I don’t think any of them have created more interest.”
Local Councillor Charles Fifield said: “We have attempted to keep residents informed at each stage of the project and I am very pleased that these pictures show that it won’t be long before the Round Tower is part of our local landscape again.
“Whilst the refaced stonework will look ‘as good as new’ the sandstone will soon weather and give a more realistic appearance of its true age.”
Built by Thomas Cholmondeley, later Baron Delamere, in the first decade of the 19th century, the crenulated Round Tower was marooned by the construction of the A556 in the late 1930s.
It was dismantled November 2013 after being hit by a car.
