Work has been ongoing over the past two years to transform Knole’s barn into an impressive conservation studio. It will be the first of its kind within the National Trust, when it opens to visitors in 2017.
The new roof is the latest instalment in a five-year, £19.8million building and conservation project, in partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund, which will restore Knole’s beautiful building and protect its interiors and collection.
The project has now celebrated a milestone as the scaffolding has been taken down, revealing the new roof of the conservation studio. Dozens of people gathered to mark the special occasion and to see the barn with its impressive pitched roof, for the first time since it was destroyed in a fire in 1887.
They looked on as Robert Sackville-West, the seventh Baron Sackville to reside at Knole, climbed the scaffolding to sign and lay the final tile on the barn’s roof, in a traditional topping out ceremony.