Pioneering tiling restorer just keeps adding to his achievements

Steve Sinnott can be said to be a man with a mission. That mission is to restore as many historic tiled floors and walls as he can, whether they are listed or not: so they can be viewed and enjoyed once more – by their owners in the case of private residences or by the general public in the case of the many public buildings he has worked on.

Steve began his working life as a stone carver, but a contract that had a badly damaged marble mosaic floor changed his life. It took him nearly three years to restore that floor, involving the cutting of almost one million cubes, or tesserae. It proved to be Steve’s epiphany. Before long he had travelled to other countries to restore mosaic floors, but soon specialised in Victorian encaustic and geometric tile restoration. Encaustic tiles revolutionised tiled flooring by allowing several colours to be included in one tile. The resulting patterns epitomised Victorian tiled floors.

As there was no training programme for the restoration of encaustic and geometric tiling – a situation that persists to this day – Steve taught himself the craft from scratch. In 1982 he established the Heritage Tiling & Restoration Co, which has worked in as many as 22 different countries.

Since then he has carried out restoration projects on over 300 listed buildings – ranging from major public buildings such as the Harbour Commissioners’ building in Belfast and many churches, to a huge range of private Victorian homes. He can rightly claim to have been in the business for longer than most!

Said Steve: “My work is all about restoring historic tiled floors. The biggest percentage is Victorian encaustic and geometric tiled floors and occasionally wall tile schemes: again, these are usually Victorian. However, as floors are under constant wear and tear it is geometric and encaustic tiled floors that comprise our bread and butter work. Mosaics – oddly the type of floor that started it all – feature less now.”

A major boost to the company’s fortunes came in 1986 when the company was tasked with the restoration of the tiled floors of the Capitol Building extensions in Washington DC.

In this country, one of his favourite floors is the tiled floor of St George’s Hall in his home town of Liverpool – like the Capitol Building a fine example of Minton tiles repaired following the resurrection of the company’s patterns. He is not alone in his admiration: the floor has been described as ‘the world’s best example of an encaustic tiled floor’.

One of his most complex jobs was the restoration of the floor of a Victorian hotel in Lancashire. The floor had been substantially damaged during the 1970s when it re-opened as a night club following a long period of dereliction. Large parts of the floor had been ripped up to provide access for pipework. The 25,000-plus tiles that were laid were a mix of reclaimed tiles and new reproduction units sourced from specialist manufacturer Craven Jackfield Tiles – pictured before (left) and after restoration. Some curved tiles were hand cut by Steve as there was no pattern for them.

A further element of Steve’s work is the training up of young people interested in carrying forward the craft of encaustic tile restoration – both in this country and as far afield as New Zealand.

Steve explained: “I have now worked in many different countries and have helped train tilers or at least encourage them to try this very difficult but satisfying branch of tiling.”

Summing up his approach to his work, Steve commented: “I’m not concerned about the project size as such: what matters is the floor! I love what I do and like to see a happy customer. Bringing a damaged floor from a ruin to a beautiful floor is what matters.”

• For further information visit www.heritagetiling.com