Museum furniture Conservation Services & Historic Vehicle Conservation

Established in 1990 by Hugh Meller-Haley and based in West Wales, we offer antique furniture conservation services to Museums and Historic Houses.

We also have a private practice and are pleased to receive enquiries from private clients. We specialise in vernacular Welsh oak furniture and have had some very interesting pieces through our hands over the years. I was blessed to be entrusted with ‘Y Gadair Ddu’ some years ago, The Black Chair won by Hedd Wyn at the 1917 Eisteddfod and passed to the nation in 2014. It had been sitting in the parlour at Yr Ysgwrn ever since along with five other Bardic chairs and the entire contents of the house, unchanged since the 1850’s.

We undertook the conservation treatment of the entire collection at our workshops along with the household fixings such as the kitchen range and other fireplaces.

Hugh achieved accreditation from BAFRA (the British Antique Furniture Restorers’ Association) in 1996 and has been an associate member of the Institute of Conservation since 1992.

I have long had an association with what are now known as Historic Vehicles. Growing up our neighbours ran an old fashioned garage and service station. They sold petrol and had three mechanics mending Moggie 1000’s for all they were worth to cover the payments on various ‘rally’ spec Ford Escorts, Broadspeed Bullet Capris and other exotica. The younger son and I grew up on the fringes of all this and by 16 were essentially living in the back of the workshop which had by now closed due to the advent of electronic ignition!

We kept our own vehicles running on a shoestring while using them to the max so we quickly developed what turned out to be an early version of Conservation over restoration as we mended anything possible rather than buy a replacement part! Our mentor Ira Jones grew up on a farm in the thirties, trained as a mechanic while serving during and after the war. He was a fiercely practical man who could start anything in a jam! He imparted his knowledge to us with quiet words and we picked up the rest from bitter and invariably expensive experience.

All these years I have maintained a motorcycle workshop alongside the furniture studio where we run and maintain various bikes from the 60’s & 70’s Two Nortons, a pair of Air Head Boxers with sidecars among others.

With retirement looming I am spending more time in there and last year was delighted to be asked to prepare the motorcycles to be shown at the newly rebuilt Museum of Land Speed in Pendine, West Wales.

These comprised three early british motorcycles, one of which a 20’s Sunbeam had actually raced on the beach at Pendine back in the day. They had been on open display in the old Museum and subsequently were just starting to pickup a bit of tarnish on the bright work. They had also never really laid up properly so we also carried out work such as draining out old oil and replacing with conservation grade types, fogging voids with anti corrosion sprays etc. The tarnish gently removed and then the bright work and painted parts were coated with a carnauba based wax.

Henceforth they are to be displayed in sealed glass cases creating a micro climate for them.

We have worked on many more ‘metal’ based objects and welcome enquiries.