On one of London’s busiest traffic islands outside King’s Cross Station, there once stood a beautiful building known as the Lighthouse Building, which had sadly fallen into dereliction. For years it had been an eyesore left to ruin, providing a home for hundreds of pigeons and many unruly buddleia trees.

In the summer of 2015, as part of a wider redevelopment of the King’s Cross area, we were commissioned to assist with the restoration of this unusual building. Our work focused on replacing the many ornate window surrounds, pediments and dormers. Other components ranged from the rooftop arched balustrading, bracketed cornice, and corbels, right down to the 3 metre-high pilasters separating the shopfronts. These pilaster units were painstakingly restored from the originals to recreate the intricate carvings. Each unit features a lion’s face, a four-leaved flower, and a pulvinated corbel plinth set upon rolled-moulded square shafts.