The Web Perambulator Museum, Restoration.

The Web Perambulator Museum

Restoration

As a general rule we prefer to do as little restoration work as possible. Sometimes all that’s needed is a jolly good clean and polish. To restore scuffed hoods and upholstery good results can be gained from using coloured shoe polish, alternatively colour restorer from the following link is excellent. Leather Forever. To repair minor scuffs and scratches on wooden bodied prams acrylic paints can be used. Acrylic paints are water based and can be mixed to give a good colour match, used watered down, scuffs can be gradually coloured, it won’t be perfect but will cover those ugly marks that seem to draw the eye. Please note this is advise only and great care must be taken, always test any colours on an area that does not show first, before attempting any restoration.

Early prams in good original condition are hard to find and can be prohibitively expensive. As you will see from the pictures on this and following pages many of our prams came to us in a very sorry state and needed to be fully restored. follow this link to Farrow and Ball for a great range of Victorian coloured paints.

(Above) French Pram c1875.

This pram came to us in a very poor state, in fact the photograph flatters it, it was given to us with the bits in a suitcase, however all the bits were there which is a great bonus. It’s constructed from wood and paper it has a wooden frame over which thick card is laid, the top layer is made of stencilled paper. Surprisingly it was not that difficult to do, though the stencilling was time consuming. For larger image of picture on the left see Gallery page 2.

(Left) Dolls pram c1900.

Another pram which needed to be fully restored, again all parts were there.

Just a taste of some of the prams that we have restored, for more information on these and other prams in the collection please go to gallery pages.

(Right) Simpson & Fawcett Bassinet c1870.

This is by far the most difficult we have ever tackled. We approached a local firm who specialise in cane work and were told that it would not be possible to repair and that we would need a new basket, however they were not willing to reproduce one to the original design. So, as we had nothing to lose we thought we would have a go ourselves.

We were very pleased with the end result. The top and the bottom are original as is the back of the basket, all the other canes were removed 1 by 1 and replaced with garden pea sticks. Unfortunately the hood is missing, if anyone knows where I can find one please email me, I would be very grateful. For larger image of picture on the right go to Gallery page 1.