In 2022, to celebrate our 140th anniversary we launched our Heritage Project competition. This was to help us find some so-far undiscovered examples of Diespeker terrazzo around the UK.
Diespeker’s early work in marble, mosaic and terrazzo is in evidence across the nation, from churches and cathedrals, entertainment venues, hospitals, station concourses to a multitude of frontages and facades.
It is, of course, difficult to be entirely sure that a section of terrazzo was created by Diespeker – after all there were, and still are, other specialist suppliers and installers, although perhaps none with our longevity.
Luckily, we received one outstanding entry, all the way from Devon!
A resident of Brixham in South Devon, Ian is a customer of Lloyds bank. He says he was waiting for the Paignton branch to open one morning and began admiring the terrazzo flooring at the entrance and thought it was a material he’d like to use in his own home. He spotted a mosaic signature ‘Diespeker’s patent’ (which we’ve seen on other examples previously, including the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow) and looked us up online.
Whilst browsing our website, he came across the Heritage Project and decided to send in a photograph of the Lloyds Bank entrance.
For Diespeker, this entry was a clear winner. So one of the team drove down to Devon to meet Ian and have a closer look at this historical piece of terrazzo.
Whilst there, they chatted with bank employees, who showed them a display of bygone items collected by Lloyds Bank, which had celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2015. The collection included an old photo of the branch. The building is a curved design made from sandstone, and was built in the early 1900s, which fits in with the era that the ‘Diespeker’s patent’ signature was being used. So this Paignton terrazzo is well over a century old!
One of the bank employees then told us she loved walking across the decorative threshold every day and that it was wonderful that the terrazzo had been left in place.
Thank you to Ian for spotting this example of our work and for taking the time to send it to us. We’re delighted to know that Diespeker’s terrazzo truly stands the test of time.
