The Tiltyard Tower is a grade 1 listed building and scheduled ancient monument and is situated within the Wilderness Gardens at Hampton Court Palace. The structure is the only remaining tower of which five were originally built. They were constructed by Henry VIII for use as viewing platforms for visiting dignitaries and courtiers to watch tournaments within the Tiltyard Garden. 

Completed project works

Timings: April - December 2006

Issues that were addressed:

• Previous brick repairs, including later mortar insertions (notably black ash), proved particularly damaging to the building fabric
• There were lengthy vertical cracks of unstable unbonded brickwork to the south east and north east elevations
• There were long vertical unbonded joints demarcating the reveals to the original large Tudor windows

Some of the works carried out:

• Conserving and repairing the Tudor facing brickwork to all of the elevations by replacing around 4000 individual bricks with new hand made bricks
• Carefully removing the black ash pointing and replacing it with a softer, lime mortar
• Stabilising the areas of unbonded brickwork using ties and grouting