The Hereford Screen was designed in 1862 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. Before installation in Hereford Cathedral, it was a star exhibit at the 1862 International Exhibition, praised as a triumphant example of modern architectural metalwork, but in 1967 it fell victim to fashionable anti-Victorian prejudice and was dismantled and sold. In 1983 it was given to the V&A. The practice was commissioned to manage the conservation and installation of the Screen which, at the beginning of the project, consisted of approximately 14,000 separate pieces. Its structural coherence had been lost and many decorative parts were loose or missing. The originally vivid colours of the painted elements were muted, much of the paint was flaking off and the metalwork was disfigured by rust. The Screen had been designed to be freestanding, so, to ensure its stability in its new home at the V&A, a foundation of steel girders was built inside the base plinth and thick steel rods were fitted inside the columns, bolted to the girders and fixed onto steel plates inside the entablature. At the time, the restoration of the Screen was the largest conservation project ever undertaken by the V&A, both in scale and cost.