hanks to our years of experience working on sensitive Heritage projects, IQ Projects was asked to undertake specialised glazing works to the renovation of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.

This world heritage site is home to the 11^th Duke of Marlborough and is a very important monument of British heritage. Due to this, IQ had to use specialised fixing techniques in order to protect the listed stonework’s. This project consisted of a number of fixed and opening frameless glass elements in low iron and anti-reflective glass to the North Lodge of the Palace as well as the public areas to the East Courtyard including the entrance, café and shopping areas.

Frameless glass doors were installed at the entrances to the East Courtyard, café and shopping areas to allow visitors to see through into each area as well as to maintain the incredible stonework of the listed building. Frameless Glass Pivot doors have been used throughout the Palace with sliding glass doors at one of the entrances to the Palace. The frameless glass doors were placed in front of another set of doors with a biparting configuration, providing extra space for people to pass through.

Each Archway within the courtyard has been filled in with frameless glass to protect the covered walkways from wind and rain throughout the year. A digital 3D survey was conducted by IQ Projects before our design process began to ensure that all pre-bonded stainless steel fixings to the glass directly lined up with the mortar joints between the stone. When the glass arrived on site the glass was able to simply slot into the archways with no holes, drilling or fixing to interact directly with the listed stone archways.

Anti-reflective glass coatings were used to help produce a clearer glass finish as the residual reflectance can be as little as 1% with this coating. Anti-reflective coatings are well suited to listed or historical buildings as they require as little impact on the appearance of the building as possible.