Recently reopened Preston museum's floor needs repairs

The distinctive mosaic flooring in Preston’s Harris Museum needs urgent repairs – because of the number of people who have walked across it since the attraction reopened last year.

Damage to the patterned floor has been deemed a trip hazard, but temporary measures taken to reduce that risk are themselves causing further deterioration, a report to be presented to Preston City Council’s cabinet next week reveals.

Members will be asked to approve a £45,000 restoration scheme to ensure the “immediate stabilisation and specialist conservation” of the decorative underfoot feature. It is hoped the work can be completed before a major new exhibition opens in less than six weeks.

The authority has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that the problems with the flooring are unrelated to the £19m renovation of the Grade I-listed Harris, which saw the attraction closed for four years.

They are, however, being attributed to the increase in visitor numbers seen since the reopening of what has been branded the country’s first ‘blended’ museum, art gallery and library last autumn.

By the end 2025, 154,497 visitors had crossed the threshold at The Harris since they were allowed back in on 26th September.

The main exhibition during that time was Wallace and Gromit’s ‘A Case at the Museum’ which drew in more than 105,000 people in its first eight weeks and helped more than double the weekly visitor average in October to 14,500 compared to its pre-closure level. No attendance figures for this year have yet been released.

In the spring, a mosaic specialist was drafted in to carry out what the cabinet report describes as “a detailed condition survey…and to catalogue urgent minimum-intervention conservation works” to protect the floor from “further deterioration”.

That process identified “numerous missing tesserae, vulnerable sections, historic unsympathetic repairs, cracking, and areas of weakened substrate” throughout the marble mosaic flooring, which can be found on all three publicly-accessible levels of The Harris.

The affected areas include sections of the first and second floors around the grand central space, along with their landings and thresholds to adjoining rooms and galleries.

The report adds: “The lifting tiles present an immediate high-risk trip hazard for visitors, staff and contractors. Temporary protective matting has reduced the immediate risk, but in some areas, it is contributing to further damage due to heavy footfall over unstable flooring.”

The LDRS captured images showing two small mat-covered areas on the first floor, where the protective material had been fixed in place with black-and-yellow-striped tape. Missing tiles were visible in several areas, most notably at the top of one of the staircases to the second floor. Cracks were visible elsewhere, but in some places the mosaic appeared to be in good condition.

Cabinet members will be told that the repairs need to be “fast-tracked and completed prior to 19th September to support the planned, autumn exhibition programme and associated educational activities”. That is when an exhibition marking 80 years since the launch of Lancashire’s Horrockses Fashions brand is due to open.

A spokesperson for Preston City Council told the LDRS: “The repairs to the mosaic floor at The Harris are separate from the recent refurbishment works.

“The issue only became apparent following the reopening of the venue and its subsequent record levels of footfall, which have highlighted areas requiring additional remedial work.

“Further details will be shared following a decision at the cabinet meeting.”

If the work is given the green light, the cash will come from a contingency fund established as part of the broader ‘Reimagining The Harris’ refurbishment project, from which it is estimated there will be a sufficient surplus once outstanding bills have been paid.

A waiver has been put in place to allow the contract for the repairs to be awarded directly to the Mosaic Restoration Company, which is an accredited flooring specialist.

Bosses at The Harris said at the time of its reopening last year that they hoped the newly-renovated space would swell visitor numbers by around 100,000 a year compared to pre-pandemic levels, to reach around 450,000.