Stoke Rochford Hall was built in the 1840’s for Christopher Turnor and was designed in Jacobean style by the William Burn, one of the greatest country house architects of the period.  A catastrophic fire in 2005 completely devastated most of the state rooms, which were completely restored following a £12 million three-year refurbishment and re-opened to the public in August 2008.

Fairhaven and Woods were selected as the specialist sub-contractors to conserve and restore the six important fireplaces found in the major rooms.

In the library, one of the pair of Louis XV style fireplaces was completely destroyed.  Using the surviving example as the pattern, a new fireplace was carved in the highly prized Rouge Royale Coral marble from Belgium, named after its use in the palaces of Versailles.

In the Turnor Room adjacent to the library was another pair of fireplaces executed in white Italian statuary marble.  In this case, the head only was badly damaged, so the restoration involved carving this anew, then re-fixing it between the original jambs.