Major Resurfacing Project in Shoreditch – The Museum of the Home

The Museum of the Home is a free museum in Shoreditch, formerly known as the Geffrye Museum (named after the former Lord Mayor of London, Robert Geffrye, who was the main benefactor of the original almhouse building where the museum is now located).

It’s a fascinating Grade I-listed building that offers visitors a detailed history of home and home life over the past 400+ years. The museum was closed for a major refurbishment and rebranding in 2018, which included the pathways and walkways around the museum grounds.

We were instructed to handle this aspect of the renovation, which was a major project given the size of the property and its grounds. It was essential that the finished result match the aesthetic and visual tone of the original building and that any resurfacing work would withstand the foot traffic of the hundreds of thousands of visitors the museum receives each year.

The main part of the project was to replace the walkways with resin-bound gravel. This hard-wearing and attractive material has several benefits for a public building like the Museum of the Home. It looks amazing while also being low-maintenance. Resin-bound gravel also reduces the risk of slips and trips, an important consideration for properties that welcome large numbers of visitors.

The entrance to the museum was laid with reclaimed Yorkstone paving that we needed to lift and relay with a new entrance ramp that allowed vehicles to access the museum grounds. We used as much of the original Yorkstone as we could, supplementing it with our own stock where necessary. The paving was raised using reclaimed stock bricks to ensure a safe and stable surface.

As we laid the resin-bound gravel and relaid the Yorkstone, we also installed new service ducting throughout the grounds for the cabling that would power the exterior lighting.