Building Update – September 2025

As many of you will have seen, a lot of work has been going on with the building recently, here is a further update on the progress.

1. Since our last update in August, the contractor (Fintan Morrison) has completed the repairs of the brickwork and the facade, including three applications of a poultice to remove a century of grime. Hopefully you will agree it all looks much better and more importantly, it is now structurally sound.
3. The Kit Room windows are also now back in place, although the secondary double glazing has yet to be replaced as we are waiting for the internal paint to arrive (see below). Crispin Thomas has beautifully restored the external sills as well as the sashes themselves, and we hope to repeat this process for the rest of our windows over the next few years. Crispin has carefully assessed the condition of all of them, and we have a plan to tackle the worst ones first as soon as funds allow.

As we have invested both the money we had from Lambeth and other funds in the repair and refresh of the original brickwork, the Board was approached for approval to finish the job properly and repaint the front doors. This approval was given, and the contractors are now stripping the paint from the doors.

Fun fact: The doors weren’t always red, the contractors have mentioned that one of the layers of paint was obviously blue, and we can see a brown and a green layer as well.

In order to remain in keeping with our heritage building, and to allow the wood to ‘breathe’ the paints we are ordering for both the windows and the doors are made by a specialist producer and are linseed oil based. This is key for any of our heritage woodwork, with the right paint, the wood will last longer.

Unfortunately modern paints eventually crack, and when they do water seeps into the wood and then cannot escape, leading to rot. Therefore going forward we will be stripping back modern paint, fixing or replacing rotten wood, and then treating with linseed oil based paints.

We have paint on order for the windows, and testers for the front doors.

Colour matching is not as simple as it is with modern paints, so we will get as close as we can to the current colour, but there may be a small difference.

The paint is expensive, so even if it is just the right colour for your set, leave it alone! We will make sure that the paint is clearly marked as heritage paint when it arrives, and we will keep it with our building supplies rather than with the general paint stock (it will last a reasonable amount of time if it is properly sealed).

Won’t this leave the front doors exposed if the paint doesn’t arrive in time?

Don’t worry, the contractors will put on a coat of pure linseed oil, to protect the wood, if the timings don’t work.

Our friends in the SLT Members Club who have made a donation to the facade costs, we have also received three donations from members this year (who wish to remain anonymous) and these will be put towards the costs of the facade and doors.

Fintan and his colleagues are moving down the road to start significant works in Crystal Palace Park (the dinosaurs and Italian Terrace) – having been involved with the West Norwood Cemetery renovation they’re making an impact on the local area! They’ll be popping back to complete some snagging so you may still see them around.

The Building Group has a detailed list of building maintenance / improvement issues that need tackling. We’re prioritising according to risk levels and will be moving onto the next items as soon as possible. If you have any questions or ideas or wish to help please do get in touch with us on
building@southlondontheatre.co.uk email address.

Gareth Milton

Commercial Director (volunteer)