Located in the centre of Kendal, the building is home to 23 charitable organisations and is managed by the Stricklandgate House Trust. The Trust had already secured in-principle funding from HLF for repairs to the fabric of the grade 2 listed building but had a requirement to appoint a conservation accredited architect to lead the project team. JCA were awarded the commission by competitive tender and proceeded to schedule out repairs working broadly within the scope of work that had already been established.

The works included re-roofing, window repair, re-pointing of the rear elevations, lime stucco repair of the front elevation including paint stripping and redecoration following detailed analysis, installation of new cast iron railings as well as other more localised repairs. Final project cost was in the region of £350,000.

The project has been a great success and was delivered on budget and on time. It was highly commended in the civic trust awards. Close collaboration between all interested parties was key to that success. The client, end users, contractor, consultants, civic society, local planners, HLF and EH all worked extremely well together to ensure that the building project achieved all of its aims and continued to provide a vital resource to the local community.

Design development and repair proposals

In order to agree the colour scheme for the external decoration of the building that is very prominent in the centre of the town, JCA worked extremely closely with the English Heritage (Historic England), the HLF, Local Authority Conservation Officer and the local Civic Society.