Building Conservation Professionals in Birkenhead, Merseyside

“When it comes to the bespoke creation or restoration of Victorian encaustic & geometric tiled floors, Steve is unique, quite literally in a class of his own. He’s that good. A Master craftsman’s Master craftsman. He brings decades of experience to his craft in a way that actually puts most of the original Victorian tilers to shame! We’re not a listed building or anything grand, but we did still have a small original Victorian geometric-tiled floor at the entrance to our flat. Except, sadly it had long gone past its sell-by date. The underlying screed had crumbled, and with the lack of support, the tiles had cracked and broken. It was a mess, and worse, actually it was downright boring! So much for Victorian craftmanship! For a long time, we’d hoped to get something done about it, but realized that it wasn’t any ordinary kind of tiler’s job, it needed someone that really understood. We’d approached a few that had some experience of geometric tiling, but as soon as they were questioned about how they would tackle the failed screed, the shallow depth of their knowledge and experience was quickly exposed. I initially contacted Steve to ask how this should be tackled, not thinking for a moment that such a small job would be of any interest to him, and he very kindly responded by providing about 50 pages of detailed information on the subject, to assist the DIYer. At no cost, and no obligation to him. You see he’s a really nice guy who cares about what he does. Having read it cover-to-cover, I was convinced. Forget DIY, forget the others, we must get Steve! Fortunately, Steve’s willing to bring those self-same skills that are so much in demand by historic public and other listed buildings all around the world to your door too. Our door in this case! Whereas we had simply thought that at best all we could hope for was for the existing, boring, Victorian floor design to be recreated, we hadn’t allowed for Steve’s creative skills. No, he offered instead to create a unique bespoke design just to bring out the best of our doorway, and of course we jumped at the chance. Who wouldn’t? Right from the start we knew it would be fantastic and indeed it is. He combined some geometric tiles from his own stock with ones we had carefully stored for years waiting to find him, only to discover that he was the very man that had actually cut them all those years ago when we got them made for us by H&R Johnsons! He even brought us some beautiful and rare original encaustic tiles recovered decades ago from an old church and kept for ‘just the right design’, which we are delighted to say is now ours! Watching him at work is just amazing. Not only had he ‘envisaged’ the floor design in his head before he even placed a tile to illustrate it, he has the skills and the experience to work out all of the technical details there too – from the volume of the screed, to the area of the ‘field’ in the centre of the design, all in his knowledgeable head. Working in a very tight space, with very little margin for error, he delivered perfectly everything he promised. If you have Victorian geometric or encaustic tiles that need restored, or would like a new bespoke floor, don’t hesitate, Steve’s your man.”