Shield Scaffolding Services has completed a scaffold around Wiltshire’s 38-metre Lansdowne Monument in 19 days, overcoming a steep access route that prevented vans and lorries from reaching the hilltop site.
Working for Cliveden Conservation, the scaffolding division of Shield Services Group designed and installed the access structure to support restoration and conservation of the Grade II* listed obelisk at Cherhill.
The main logistical challenge was moving materials to the monument. According to Shield, the approach follows a steep, heavily rutted track, with vans and lorries unable to travel any significant distance up it. Even access by four-wheel-drive vehicles depended on ground conditions.
Shield worked with the project team and a local farmer to move the materials required for the installation. The company said planning those movements was central to keeping the work progressing at the exposed site.
Jamie Angell, Shield’s scaffolding managing director, said:
“This was a project where the planning and preparation were just as important as the installation itself. The location meant we had to think carefully about how we would get the materials to the monument and keep everything moving efficiently once we were on site.”
The installation also had to take account of the monument’s prominent position in the surrounding downland landscape. Shield said the setting called for a sensitive approach to erecting the structure.
Angell added: “The team worked extremely well together, adapting to the access conditions and working closely with Cliveden to overcome the logistical challenges.”
The completed scaffold provides working access for Cliveden Conservation and its specialist teams. In a project update supplied to Scaffmag on 20 October, Shield’s representatives said conservation work was ongoing.
The 19-day programme relates to the scaffold installation, rather than completion of the monument’s restoration.
Historic England’s listing records that the obelisk was erected in 1845 to a design by Sir Charles Barry for the third Marquess of Lansdowne. It commemorates Sir William Petty, the statistician and economist who was an ancestor of the Petty-Fitzmaurice family.
Built from rubble stone with ashlar dressings, the monument stands on Cherhill Down. The National Trust’s description of the landscape places it alongside the chalk White Horse and the Iron Age earthworks of Oldbury Castle.
