Blackmoor Knight expands its maintenance portfolio across London
From the Royal Institution on Albemarle Street to Sadler’s Wells’ theatres and studios, Blackmoor Knight provides building maintenance across London for properties with very different demands. Our portfolio includes historic museums, performance venues and commercial showrooms, and much of that work has grown out of continuing relationships with clients who already know our team.
For the people responsible for these buildings, it helps to have engineers who know the premises, understand how they are used and can pick up where they left off on the last visit. That familiarity matters when planning routine work, and it becomes particularly valuable when something needs attention quickly.
Building maintenance at the Royal Institution and London heritage sites
At the Royal Institution on Albemarle Street, we provide maintenance under a rolling long-term agreement. This continues our relationship with the Institution following earlier project work, including refurbishment in the main theatre. It is a building with a particular place in engineering history: Michael Faraday developed the first electric motor in its basement laboratory in 1821.
The Garden Museum on Lambeth Palace Road presents a different kind of setting. Housed in the former church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, it brings together historic architecture and exhibitions on the art and history of gardening. Our role is to provide building maintenance in a setting where the building itself is part of what visitors come to see.
That is also true of Dr Johnson’s House in Gough Square, where our continuing relationship covers planned preventative maintenance and building upkeep. At Staple Inn in Holborn, we provide planned preventative maintenance and look after the building services. These properties differ in layout and use, so understanding how each one operates is an essential part of planning the work.
Supporting Sadler’s Wells across its London venues
Our planned preventative maintenance work for Sadler’s Wells covers all its London premises, including Sadler’s Wells East in Stratford.
The Stratford venue brings together a theatre, dance studios, rehearsal areas and public spaces. The needs of a performance space can differ from those of a studio or foyer, even within the same building. Across a portfolio of venues, understanding those differences helps us plan maintenance around how each space is used.
From showroom refurbishment to ongoing maintenance
Our work with Mirage Ceramics shows how a refurbishment can develop into a longer working relationship. After refurbishing the company’s London showroom in 2024, we went on to become its planned preventative maintenance contractor.
Having worked on the premises during the refurbishment, we brought existing knowledge of the site to the maintenance role. For clients, that continuity means the knowledge built up during a project can carry through into the day-to-day care of the building.
Growing at a pace that protects the service
David M G Brimley, Managing Director of Blackmoor Knight, explains the thinking behind the company’s approach to maintenance, apprenticeships and growth:
Being in the services/facilities industry for over 40 years has given me a wealth of experience sitting on 'both sides of the fence'.
Here at Blackmoor Knight we know that a smart, quick and effective service with regular engineers who you get to know and trust who know your premises and company operation is a key ingredient.
Being an ex-apprentice, I also recognise the need to take on apprentices and we support an apprentice route and always have apprentices in stages of training. They are and will become future assets to Blackmoor Knight and the industry as a whole.
We don’t subscribe to the 'Competitive Tendering' race that many engineering/facilities company’s play in. We offer good value for money services, with a 99.5% success rate of retained clients.
The well known statement by John Ruskin 1819-1900 still holds true today:
"It's unwise to pay too much. But it's worse to pay too little.
When you pay too much, you lose a little money, that is all.
When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.
The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot.
It can't be done.
If you deal with the lowest bidder, you should add something for the risk you run.
And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something far better.
There is hardly anything in the world that someone can't make a little worse and sell a little cheaper- and people who consider price alone are this man's lawful prey."
(John Ruskin, Social Reformer, 1819-1900) & GKT International
Our company ambition is not to keep growing for any reason BUT to encourage controlled growth with our client base expanding in a controlled way that ensures we continue with our 'hands on' service.
Whether we’re maintaining a historic property, a theatre or a commercial showroom, the aim is to give clients a team they know and can rely on to look after their premises. If you’re reviewing your building maintenance arrangements, get in touch with Blackmoor Knight to discuss what your site needs.
Photo Credit BJ Deakin Photography
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