The conservation of arms and armour is a technically complex field requiring knowledge of a large range of metalworking techniques and decorative finishes. Many items, even those that appear to be of simple manufacture, can contain important historic information that makes prior inspection and treatment planning necessary to avoid loss of information or damage occurring.

The frequent combination of inorganic metals and organic materials such as leather, textiles, ivory, shell and timber, requires us to have a good general working knowledge of all these materials and their conservation. We have worked on arms and armour from many regions of the world for many institutions but particularly the large collection in the care of The National Trust

Another significant part of our work in this field is to establish preventive conservation cleaning programmes for collections and to advise on the special display often required which may involve the design of unique security fittings due to the vulnerability of many public displays.