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Restoration

The Grand Saloon, supporting truss detail

Restoration of
The Jenners Building

Specialist craftspeople and heritage trades from across Scotland and the UK are carrying out extensive restoration works, guided by Loader Monteith Architects, Conservation Architects to The Jenners Building project. The aim is to honour the building’s layered history through a nuanced approach to conservation – retaining and reinstating historic architectural features wherever possible, while allowing the building to evolve to serve contemporary life.

Close-up of ornate stone sculptures and carvings on a historical building under restoration, with scaffolding and a construction crane in the background.

Stonework restoration

The building is being painstakingly restored and uncovered at every point. Internally, original staircases and balustrades have been carefully disassembled, catalogued, and crated, ready to be meticulously reinstated, taking their place alongside new design interventions.

The elaborate façade has been appraised stone by stone from the scaffold, with each element assessed individually to determine whether material integrity remains, while limiting intervention.

Historic balustrade detail

‘When we acquired the Jenners building, we knew that it came with a great deal of responsibility. It is iconic within Edinburgh’s built environment and integral to the city’s cultural heritage.’

Anders Holch Povlsen, AAA United

Sculpture Conservation

Graciela Ainsworth Sculpture Conservation

Conservation work to the 22 female caryatids, 12 female statues and balcony on the Jenners Building external façade.

‘It was a genuine privilege to return to the female caryatids and statues at The Jenners Building in 2025, a full thirty years after our initial conservation of them in 1995. Today, we are reapplying breathable, sacrificial shelter coats to give these vulnerable statues another layer of defence.

This project has been a career highlight, blending our original care with today’s best practices, and I'm immensely proud to have helped conserve these sculptures for a new generation.’

Graciela Ainsworth

Leadwork

Matheson Plumbing Company

Roof contractors, carrying out all the lead work to the gutters, the dormers and ridges.

‘As a company that has worked on many of Edinburgh’s historic properties, we are honoured to be involved with a building as iconic as The Jenners Building. I have fond memories of visiting the building as a child, so now playing a part in its evolution is a joy.’

Fraser Matheson

Glass Restoration

Rainbow Glass Studios, Scotland

Advice, conservation, and restoration of all decorative glass within the building, including copper lights, heraldic leaded glass, and embossed internal screens.

‘Working on The Jenners Building has been a privilege for all of us at Rainbow Glass. We have been restoring the heraldic glass windows and enjoying the unique opportunity to study historic photographs of the interiors. The 1895 images revealed more individual decorative lights that had been lost to time. Recreating these features from the photos and surviving examples has been immensely satisfying.’

Moira Malcolm

Stonework

Stirling Stone

‘It has been a huge privilege to work on this iconic building. We have worked meticulously to review each stone, restoring or replacing it as needed. We have used Blaxter Sandstone, which is quarried in Northumberland and supplied by Dunhouse Quarry.

This fine-grained, honey-coloured stone has been quarried since the 1890s and used for many prestigious buildings in Scotland. We look forward to the day when the wraps are off and we can all see the building reinstated to its former glory.’

John Dunn