May 2025
Boston Lodge Engineering Works £5m NLHF Project Completion Celebration
Boston Lodge is the world's oldest continuously operating railway engineering works, located within the historic slate landscape of north Wales, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The project aims to tell the stories of the railways, their history, and the skills involved in their operation, making them accessible to future generations and preserved the built heritage of this international significant heritage railway.
Thread acted as Lead Consultant and Architect for the £5m project, delivering work to 11 buildings across the listed site, to a combination of new build, extension, conservation and restoration of long lost structures.
Image: Guests at Rhiw Goch / Gwesteion yn Rhiw Goch. L-R: Andrew White (NLHF Director for Wales / Cyfarwyddwr Cymru CTLG), Claire Fear (Architect, Thread), Denise Poulton (NLHF Trustee / Ymddiredolwr CTLG), Dr.John Prideaux CBE (F&WHR Chariman / Cadeirydd RhFfE), Rebecca Ball (NLHF / CTLG), Paul Lewin (F&WHR General Manager / Rheolwr Cyffredinol RhFfE), Edwina Bell (Project Manager / Rheolwr Prosiect), Graham Cole (FR Society Chairman / Cadeirydd Cymdeithas RhFfE).
April 2025
Vicars Close - £4.4m NLHF Funding Success
Wells Cathedral received a significant boost from the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), granting them £4.4 million towards their campaign to preserve Vicars' Close, a medieval street in Wells. This funding supports critical conservation works on the Grade I listed buildings, including repairs like re-roofing and exterior joinery. The project also aims to introduce a new visitor experience, opening up four of the buildings on the street to the public for the first time.
Thread are working as Interpretation designers on the project, in collaboration with Joseph Bucker, musician and composer to deliver the visitor experience across four buildings along this medieval street.
Image: Vicars Close - a historic medieval street in Wells, Somerset, England, believed to be the oldest intact residential street in Europe still used for its original purpose.
April 2025
£5 Million Award to Secure the Future of Historic Tylorstown Welfare Hall
Tylorstown Welfare Hall, one of the last surviving miners’ welfare halls in the South Wales Valleys, has been awarded over £5 million in funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to restore and revitalise the building for future generations.
Built in 1933 through contributions from local miners, the Grade II listed hall has long stood as a focal point of community life. This significant investment will enable its transformation into a vibrant, multifunctional space that meets the evolving needs of the community—offering access to education, cultural activities, support services, and more.
Thread is proud to act as Lead Consultant and Architect for the project. “This is a transformative opportunity for a building of deep architectural and social significance,” said Project Architect Jenny Matravers. “We’re honoured to help shape its next chapter—creating a space that respects its past while looking to the future.”
The restoration of Tylorstown Welfare Hall comes at a critical time for the region, which continues to face economic and social challenges. The renewed hall will play a vital role in reconnecting the community and expanding access to essential resources and opportunities.
Image: The large hall on the upper floors was once used as a cinema
April 2025
£2.5m Towns Fund & NLHF Fund Glastonbury Abbey’s New Welcome
Thread, as Lead Consultant and Architect for the Glastonbury Abbey Piazza project—alongside SEED Landscape as Landscape Architects—has completed a major redevelopment of the historic site, supported by £2.5 million in funding from the UK Government’s Towns Fund and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The redevelopment of Glastonbury Abbey, one of the UK’s most historically significant sites, has transformed the visitor experience by creating a new public piazza, upgrading visitor facilities, and improving access to the Abbey’s grounds. As part of the project, the lost 12th-century cloister has been integrated into the façades through careful archaeological interpretation, adding depth to the site's history. These enhancements strengthen the Abbey’s role as a cultural and community landmark, making it a more welcoming and vibrant destination for all.
As lead consultants, Thread has worked closely with the Abbey and a glass Artist to bring this vision to life, ensuring that the site remains an accessible and vital part of Glastonbury's cultural heritage. This project represents a significant step in preserving the Abbey’s legacy while providing a modern, sustainable space for future generations to enjoy.
Image: Opening Celebration on 10 April 2025
Nov 2024
The BBC’s Wolf Hall Filming at Forde Abbey
For over 12 years, our Director and AABC-accredited architect Claire has been the incumbent architect at Forde Abbey—a Grade I listed, 12th-century Cistercian abbey and Scheduled Monument—delivering an ongoing programme of conservation and annual planning in collaboration with the Trustees, helping to safeguard the fabric of this nationally significant site. Open to the public. Earlier this year, the BBC filmed on location for Wolf Hall, with the Abbey prominently featured in the series trailer - and in the programme itself!
In addition to this Jenny, our Associate Director is currently refurbishing and extending the gift shop to form a new café in the Abbeys Walled Garden. More to follow..
Oct 2024
Historic England publishes Tone Works case study by Vanessa Ruhlig
Historic England’s Technical Conservation team commissioned Thread to write a case study to examine the process of bringing a heritage at risk building back into a state of repair for its future reuse by the community. This document highlights how the legal, funding and physical complexities attached to the repairs at Tone Works influenced the team’s methodology for the project, leading to a collaborative and bespoke targeted approach to conservation repairs across the site. The case study shows how such an approach can be used to inform the way urgent conservation repairs are achieved at Heritage at Risk sites.
The case study can be found here.
Oct 2024
Clifton Suspension Bridge Celebrates Museum Accreditation
Following Thread's work, alongside E3 Consulting Engineers, to design and install a passive archive in an existing building, the Clifton Suspension Bridge Trust’s historic collections are now consolidated in a single location. This has enabled the Trust to attain Accredited Museum status from Arts Council England, a national benchmark that acknowledges the Trust's exemplary standards in management, education, collection care, and accessibility.
The project was led by Thread Architects Jen Boddington and Jenny Matravers.
July 2024
Glastonbury Abbey Augmented Reality App launched
Glastonbury Abbey launched a new augmented reality (AR) app called “Glastonbury Stories” which delves into the world of the medieval monastery, its archaeology, myths and legends.
In a collaboration with the University of Reading, Arcade and Thread the app takes users on a quest around the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey. Using their mobile devices to uncover portals to the past, intrepid pilgrims will hear conversations from the abbey’s medieval inhabitants, discover lost artefacts rendered in 3D, and at certain locations even glimpse some of the grand buildings that formerly existed onsite.
The app, one of the first of its kind to be used at a UK heritage site. In 2015, Professor Roberta Gilchrist and Cheryl Green released new research on the previously unpublished findings of the abbey’s 20th century archaeological digs, inspiring public resources in the form of guidebooks, digital reconstructions, and more.
For further information and to download the app please go to https://glastab.be/stories
Jen Boddington with a 100% recycled glass shingle - later to be used for our Buttermarket Project.
Oct 2023
Jen Boddington is now a Certified Passivhaus Designer
Thread’s Associate Architect, Jen Boddington, is now certified to refurbish an existing building to achieve EnerPHit standards - a method of specifying a retrofit project that delivers a building which is a comfortable & healthy environment for users to inhabit, without on going high energy demand for heating or cooling.
The standard uses a fabric first approach and requires a high quality of construction to achieve certification. The key principles to achieve Passivhaus or EnerPHit:- Good Insulation; High levels of Airtightness; High performance Windows & Doors with shading designed to prevent overheating & Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery. For the retrofit project to achieve certification, a combination of these upgrades will achieve an annual heating demand of less than 25kWh/m2 per year.
Oct 2023
WILLIAM STANSELL Historic Building Awards for Tone Works Research
At the recent William Stansell Historic Building awards, Patrick Stow of Somerset Building Preservation Trust awarded Thread the Russell Lillford Award (named after the SBPT’s late chairman) in recognition of the extensive and meticulously detailed research prior to and during the on-going restoration work on the Tone Works, Wellington.
It was presented to Dr Joanne O’Hara, Somerset Council’s programme manager for Heritage At Risk, and representatives of Architectural Threads and Corbel Construction.
June 2023
Thread Appointed as Conservation Architects for TATE’s Palais de Danse
Thread will be working with Adam Khan Architects, Price & Myers and Ritchie+Daffin to work on Barbara Hepworth’s beloved workshop. The Palais has stood untouched from the point of Hepworth’s death in 1975 with her tools and artefacts preserved. The building was awarded a Grade II listing in 2020 and was recently gifted to the Tate.
This collaboration, an exceptional design team, chosen to renovate the Palais will uncover its rich history, realise its immense potential as a community-shaped heritage site, and continue its story by securing the building for the long term.
The reinvention of the Palais will ensure that it is once again a significant resource for community & collective creative activities, balancing its heritage significant with an active, year round programme of making, performing and assembly.
Dec 2023
Historic England Funding for Tone Works
Somerset West and Taunton Council has secured further grant funding for the next phase of repairs at Tone Works in Wellington.
The grant of £185,596 from Historic England will go towards Phase 3 of works at the nationally significant site which is home to a complex of Grade II and Grade II* listed buildings and was purchased by the council in 2020.
The latest funding follows a £348,420 grant received in January 2021 from the first round of the Heritage Stimulus Fund.
A second grant of £400,000 from the Heritage Stimulus Fund in October 2021 was used to employ specialist conservation contractors, engineers, ecologists and joiners to undertake structural repairs, including vital roof repairs and the stabilisation of the wall bounding the river.
The next phase of work will see one of the most complex and hazardous parts of the site made structurally stable opening up safe access routes to a number of different parts of the site.