Eton College Memorial Plaque

The plaque was designed by letting artist and sign painter Ged Palmer and incorporates the Anderson coat of arms. It was intended to fit harmoniously with the existing Victorian memorials, located high on the west wall of the Ante Chapel of College Chapel. Sir Eric Anderson  was Head Master 1980–94; Provost 2000–09.

We were approached by the college to work closely with Ged and were shown examples of the already existing memorials to ensure the style of the finished price fit in. After a pre-production sample of the engraving was signed off we received the finished artwork which was to be engraved.

In order to be able to engrave the design and infill the colours, our design team had to rework the design to ensure that all the coloured sections were surrounded by upstanding brass so that all the colours were separated from each other – simpler than it sounds! Once this was done, our team could start preparing the 1100mm x 700mm x 20mm solid piece of brass.

The brass was precision engraved using one of our CNC machines, these machines are predominantly used for intricate bookbinding type and decorative tools so was perfect to achieve the calligraphy style type and crest details. Running for the majority of 2 days, the engraving was then complete and could move on to the infilling process.

Due to the size, amount of colours required for this plaque and the quick turnaround time needed, we used a digital infill – the colours can be made as rich and opaque as traditional enamel by adding a bottom layer of white and a top layer of high gloss varnish.

The end result was stunning, and the depth of the engraving can still be seen through the infill, which is another beauty of digital infilling applying a thinner layer than achievable by hand. The plaque was in installed in August 2021 in the Ante Chapel of College Chapel.

You can read more on the blog by Eton College here.