Burnley firm secures £850,000 museum contract (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Burnley firm secures £850,000 museum contract

8:30pm Thursday 9th July 2009 in

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DEALS worth £850,000 are helping a Burnley ironworks to forge ahead, despite the gloom gripping the manufacturing world.

Bosses at Rourke and Co, in Accrington Road, have sealed a contract to provide 400 metres of glass and stainless steel balustrades for the Museum of Liverpool, which will open in 2010.

Part of the project will see Rourkes blacksmiths fashion a centrepiece winding staircase handrail and illuminated handrails for a showcase amphitheatre at the museum.

A Rourkes spokesman said: “The joint value of these contracts is in excess of £850,000 which is good news for us, and good news for Burnley.

“We have built up quite a reputation in this part of the world and are also installing a bench for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture, in Queen’s Square.”

Unlike the company’s other metallic creations, the bench has been crafted from recycled plastic and is intended as a lasting reminder of the Merseyside city’s 2008 cultural high water mark.

The firm, based at the Vulcan Works near Rosegrove station, has already scored another success with the completion of an initiative providing similar balustrades for the regen-eration of Liverpool Canal, on behalf of the city council and British Waterways.

The deals are a coup for the Burnley firm’s sales director Barrie Ogden, himself a native Liverpudlian.

The spokesman added: “We are hoping to be able to announce a number of other big contracts in the near future.”

Rourkes affinities with Liverpool stretch back more than a decade to when they were asked to create a set of gates in memory of Anfield football legend Bob Paisley.

Staff member Jim Cooper also created a bronze cameo of Liverpool boss Paisley, winner of three European Cups.

Established in 1961 by Bacup-born blacksmith Brian Rourke in his sister’s garden shed on Deerplay Moor, the firm has had bases in Blakey Street and Church Street before settling in the Vulcan Works.

The Museum of Liverpool is being built at the city’s waterfront and will show-case popular culture, while tackling social, historical and contemporary issues.