At first it seems you are working with a couple of chaps like any other two who have arrived early in the morning and are eager to get on with the job. You come around several hours later to see how things are proceeding and you meet Martin and Nick . Martin, a man of few words, does the talking while Nick continues to attend to the work quietly. It strikes you they are like a couple of monks. They don’t even chat between themselves while working, but quietly attend to the various tasks at hand –– not too fast, as if in a hurry to get done, but with a steady, even application. Progress is evident by the end of the day but it is not until around the last days that the building takes on a transformation. And when you observe the details, the initiative take to replace a damaged cedar panel, the smartness of the freshly scrubbed and oiled cedars and the clean lines on what seems to be miles of rehabilitated trimming, and you realise that these two are not just workmen, or even craftsmen, but true restorers and conservators, born of a tradition with decidedly high standards, who love their work and truly aim to please their clients. It is a work ethic that seems to have been lost, but here it is alive and thriving at Colt in the 21st century.

Brother Christopher Mark, The Monastery, Crawley Down