GEOFFREY PRESTON MBE, PLASTER WORKER
26th June 2024 | ALUMNI | NATIONAL HONOURS RECIPIENTS
In 2021 Geoffrey Preston was awarded the MBE for services to decorative plasterwork and heritage crafts, following a nomination by Heritage Crafts.
Geoffrey spearheaded the reintroduction of the endangered craft of stucco to the UK, a style of pargeting whereby designs are moulded directly onto a wall or ceiling, and is categorised as endangered on the HCA Red List of Endangered Crafts.
He has been a sculptor and decorative plaster worker for fifty years, after being apprenticed as a stonemason in London, working as a carver on the West Front of Exeter Cathedral in the 1980s, and being trained in modelling under Professor Robert Baker. Francis Terry, one of the UK’s leading classical architects, called him: “England’s best modeller of architectural detail in stucco and moulded plaster”.