The Repair Shop 2026 episode 16

The Repair Shop 2026 episode 16 opens with the kind of quiet drama that has made this series essential viewing — four objects arrive in the barn at Weald and Downland, each one carrying a life inside it. A crumbling model watermill. A silenced mantel clock. A crushed carnival headpiece blazing with memory. A pair of rusted speed skates bearing the weight of a sporting career and a father’s grief. Together, they form one of the most emotionally varied and technically demanding episodes of the current series, drawing on skills that range from horology and ceramics to metalwork and cobbling.

What makes heritage objects so compelling is precisely the weight they carry beyond their physical form. These are not antiques in the conventional sense — items acquired for investment or aesthetic pleasure. They are heirlooms forged from lived experience, each one representing a relationship, a chapter of family history, or a defining personal moment. The restoration work carried out in the barn is therefore never simply repair. It is an act of remembrance, and in this episode, that truth is felt with particular force.

The four restorations in this episode span an unusually broad range of craftsmanship disciplines. Steve Fletcher, the barn’s resident horologist, takes on a project that has nothing to do with clockwork — a miniature brick-by-brick watermill built by a man who loved his home. His son Fred Fletcher steps up to lead a clock restoration alongside two specialist collaborators. Meanwhile, metalworker Brenton West and textile conservator Rebecca Bissonnet face one of the most culturally significant objects ever brought to the barn. And master cobbler Dean Westmoreland works to revive a pair of vintage skates that helped write a chapter of British sporting history.

Each of these stories is rooted in loss. A father who built something extraordinary and is no longer here to see it restored. A ninety-year-old man whose friendship with a younger woman was expressed partly through the ticking of a clock. A Trinidadian community leader who gave up music so that his hands could create. A speed skater’s daughter, carrying both pride in a shared sport and grief for a mother she has lost. The repair shop becomes, in each case, a space where memory is given a second chance.

The episode does not rush through these stories. It allows each restoration to breathe, and it trusts the audience to understand that the technical difficulty of the work is inseparable from its emotional significance. A cracked brick on a miniature mill is not just a structural problem — it is a fragment of a man’s love for his home. A rusted blade on a speed skate is not just corrosion — it is the passage of time pressing down on something once brilliant and fast. This attention to detail, both physical and emotional, is what gives The Repair Shop 2026 its particular quality.

The episode also reflects a broader truth about British craftsmanship and the traditions of making by hand. Every object brought to the barn was made or used by someone who possessed a skill, a discipline, or a passion that set them apart. Dawn Shrives’ father built a miniature mill from scratch. Vernon Fellows Williams designed and constructed carnival costumes of extraordinary complexity. Steve Humber trained for years to become one of Britain’s finest long-track speed skaters. These are not passive stories of objects falling into disrepair. They are stories of mastery, and the restorers in the barn honour that mastery by bringing equal skill to their own work.

Family runs through the episode like a thread. Dawn carries her father’s craftsmanship. Sharon Pawley and Kelly Bromley-Smith carry Roy’s clock and his memory. Symone Williams carries her father’s legacy and a community’s heritage. Frankie Humber carries her father’s sporting identity and the fresh grief of losing her mother. And within the barn itself, the Fletcher family is working in tandem — Steve on the mill, Fred on the clock — a detail that adds its own quiet resonance to an episode steeped in the bonds between generations.

What follows is a detailed account of each restoration: the objects, the people, the technical challenges, and the results. The Repair Shop 2026 episode 16 demonstrates, across four very different projects, that the act of restoring an object is always, ultimately, an act of restoring something in the people who brought it through the door.

The Repair Shop 2026 episode 16

The Repair Shop 2026 and the Model Watermill: Steve Fletcher Rebuilds a Father’s Legacy

Dawn Shrives travelled to the barn from West Sussex carrying an object that her late father built entirely by hand in 1996. The model watermill was not a generic decorative piece. It was a deliberate, painstaking recreation of the family home — constructed brick by miniature brick, designed to stand outside the real house as a tribute to the place the family loved. Each tiny brick had been individually placed, and the overall structure reflected both the architectural character of the property and the considerable patience and skill of the man who built it.

Years of exposure to outdoor British weather had taken a severe toll. The bricks had begun to crumble and fall away. The roof had broken. The structural integrity of the model had deteriorated to the point where it was fragile and vulnerable to further collapse. The working watermill mechanism was also non-functional. For Dawn, the object represented everything her father had poured into family life — his attention to detail, his love of home, his commitment to making something that would last.

Steve Fletcher accepted the project despite it sitting well outside his usual horology remit. Having carried out his own successful home renovations in the past, he brought practical building knowledge to bear alongside his natural precision. He approached the model as a miniature construction project, carefully removing damaged sections, assessing which bricks could be saved and which needed to be replaced, and working methodically to rebuild the structure without losing the character her father had built into every element.

The goal was not a pristine replica but an honest restoration — one that preserved the evidence of craftsmanship while making the object whole again. Steve also added a working watermill mechanism, giving the finished piece a functional life it had never previously had.

Dawn Shrives and the Craftsmanship of Miniature Brickwork

The technical challenge of restoring miniature brickwork is significant. At full scale, bricklaying is a skilled trade. At miniature scale, every action is magnified — an unsteady hand, a slightly wrong angle, a fractional excess of mortar can all compromise the visual result. Dawn’s father had achieved a level of consistency across the entire structure that spoke to real patience and manual skill. Recreating that consistency in the repaired sections required Steve to match not just the brick dimensions but the rhythm and texture of the original work.

Steve’s approach was methodical. He worked section by section, stabilising the existing structure before addressing areas of damage. Missing bricks were carefully replaced in a way that blended with the surrounding original fabric. The roof, which had broken and was one of the most visible areas of damage, received particular attention. Throughout the process, Steve remained conscious that he was working with something that carried family history — this was not a generic repair job but an act of stewardship over a man’s legacy.

The result honoured that responsibility. When Dawn saw the restored watermill, with its repaired brickwork, intact roof, and newly functional water mechanism, her response confirmed the emotional core of the project. The model stood once again as the tribute her father had intended — a handmade celebration of a beloved family home, now with the added element of movement that brought the whole structure to life.

The Repair Shop 2026 and Roy’s Clock: Fred Fletcher Leads a Three-Way Restoration

The second project in the episode centred on a mantel clock that had belonged to Roy, the father of Sharon Pawley and a close friend of Kelly Bromley-Smith. Roy was a man of remarkable vitality — even in his nineties, he maintained an enthusiasm for life and adventure. Kelly, from a younger generation, formed an unlikely and deeply genuine friendship with him, and the two spent many days out together, sharing experiences that crossed the usual boundaries of age and background. The clock was Roy’s treasured possession, and after his passing it had fallen silent and its case had become chipped and worn.

Steve Fletcher’s son Fred Fletcher led the restoration, working alongside ceramics expert Kirsten Ramsay and dial restorer Cindy Welland. The project required three distinct skill sets because the clock presented three distinct sets of problems. The mechanism had stopped. The ceramic elements of the case had suffered chips and damage. And the clock face itself had deteriorated and needed specialist attention to bring back its clarity and legibility.

Fred addressed the mechanical heart of the clock, applying the horology knowledge that runs through his family. His approach was careful and diagnostic — identifying why the movement had stopped, addressing the specific faults, and returning the mechanism to reliable operation. Meanwhile, Kirsten worked on the ceramic sections of the case with the precision that restoration of fragile glazed surfaces demands. Chips in ceramic cannot simply be filled — the repair must match the original glaze colour and texture to achieve an invisible result. Cindy’s work on the dial required similar sensitivity, cleaning and stabilising the surface while preserving the original character of the face rather than replacing it.

Roy’s Friendship and the Meaning of Restored Memories

What made this project particularly moving was the nature of the friendship it represented. Kelly and Roy’s relationship was built across a generational gap that might easily have prevented it from forming at all. Roy, in his nineties, and Kelly, decades younger, found in each other a shared appetite for experience and adventure. Their days out together were not passive events — they were active, engaged, and full of the kind of shared memories that define a meaningful friendship. The clock, which Roy had kept and cherished, became the object through which Kelly and Sharon could hold onto him after his death.

The restored clock, ticking once more and presented in a case repaired to reflect its former quality, offered both women something tangible. Heirlooms like Roy’s clock carry a particular kind of emotional weight precisely because they were present during the life they represent. The clock ticked through Roy’s nineties. It was in the room when he was alive and enthusiastic. Restoring it to working order was therefore an act of reconnecting with his presence — making the silence that had fallen over the object speak again.

The three-way collaboration between Fred, Kirsten, and Cindy demonstrated one of The Repair Shop 2026’s core principles: that complex objects often require multiple experts working in concert. No single restorer could have addressed all three areas of damage with equal competence. By combining their skills, the team returned the clock to something very close to the state in which Roy would have known and loved it.

The Repair Shop 2026 and the Notting Hill Carnival Headpiece: A Tribute to Vernon Fellows Williams

Symone Williams arrived at the barn from west London with one of the most visually spectacular and historically significant objects ever brought to the programme. The headpiece had been created by her father, Vernon Fellows Williams, a Trinidadian man who had been a founding figure of the Notting Hill Carnival and the leader of the Genesis carnival band. Vernon had begun his involvement with the carnival as a drummer, but he gave up drumming entirely so that he could devote himself fully to designing and making the extraordinary costumes the band wore. This headpiece was a direct product of that commitment.

Made from copper, fabric, and intricate decorative elements, the piece had once been a showstopping centrepiece of carnival performance. However, time had been harsh. The copper sections were dented and crushed. The fabric had torn. The decorative elements had suffered the accumulated damage of storage and years. What arrived at the barn was a shadow of its former brilliance — but a shadow that still communicated the scale of Vernon’s ambition and the sophistication of his craft.

Metalworker Brenton West took responsibility for the copper elements, working to remove the dents and reshape the crushed sections without losing the form that Vernon had originally designed. Copper is a forgiving metal in some respects — it can be worked and reworked — but restoring a complex shaped piece without access to the original moulds or templates requires considerable skill and a careful eye for the intended form. Brenton worked methodically, using his knowledge of the metal’s properties to coax the damaged sections back toward their original shape.

Vernon Fellows Williams and the Heritage of Carnival Craftsmanship

The cultural significance of this restoration extended well beyond a single family’s heritage. The Notting Hill Carnival, established in the 1960s as a celebration of Caribbean culture in Britain, has grown into one of the largest street festivals in Europe. Its history is inseparable from the creativity and commitment of people like Vernon Fellows Williams, who understood that the visual spectacle of carnival was as important as its music and community spirit. The costumes and headpieces worn by band members are not mere decorations — they are works of art, designed to move, to catch light, to project joy and cultural pride at enormous scale.

Vernon’s decision to give up drumming was not a sacrifice but a redirection of his creative energy. The headpiece that Symone brought to the barn represented the full expression of that energy — a piece designed to be worn in performance, to be seen by thousands, to embody the identity of the Genesis band and the Trinidadian heritage it represented. Restoring it carried a responsibility that both Brenton and textile conservator Rebecca Bissonnet felt acutely.

Rebecca’s work on the fabric elements required her to assess each section individually. Some areas could be stabilised and cleaned. Others needed careful repair using materials and techniques sympathetic to the original construction. The challenge throughout was to restore the piece to a condition in which it could fulfil its original purpose — because this was not a museum restoration aimed at preservation alone. The headpiece was intended to appear at the carnival’s upcoming 60th-anniversary celebrations, making the restoration both a tribute to Vernon’s legacy and a living continuation of it.

Symone Williams and the Decision to Restore an Object for Active Use

The context of the 60th anniversary added a specific urgency and purpose to this project. Many objects brought to The Repair Shop 2026 are restored for display, for quiet family pride, or simply for the comfort of having something whole again. This headpiece had a deadline and a destination. It was going back to carnival. That fact shaped every decision Brenton and Rebecca made — the restoration had to achieve not just visual fidelity but structural soundness sufficient to be worn in performance.

Symone’s pride in her father’s work was evident throughout her time at the barn. Vernon had built something that connected a community across generations and across the distance between Trinidad and Britain. The Genesis band, wearing his creations, had been part of the carnival’s identity for decades. The headpiece that had arrived crushed and torn would leave the barn transformed — ready to re-enter the procession as both an heirloom and an active piece of living history.

The collaboration between Brenton and Rebecca, each bringing expertise the other lacked, produced a result that honoured the craftsmanship of its original maker. The copper gleamed again. The fabric was sound. The decorative elements had been stabilised and, where necessary, carefully repaired. The piece that had been a shadow of itself was restored to something that could once again take centre stage.

The Repair Shop 2026 and the Speed Skates: Dean Westmoreland and a Sporting Legacy

Steve Humber and his daughter Frankie arrived from Leicestershire carrying a pair of vintage speed skates that had played a direct role in launching one of Britain’s most distinguished speed-skating careers. The skates had originally been lent to Steve in 1985 when he competed in his first long-track skating race on the frozen Cambridgeshire Fens. He won that race. The owner of the skates subsequently gifted them to him, and Steve went on to build a career that included a World Championship bronze medal and selection for the British Olympic team.

The skates were not merely sporting equipment. They were the starting point of everything that followed — the pair that had been on Steve’s feet at the moment his career began. For Frankie, who had followed her father into speed skating and for whom the sport remained a powerful bond between them, the skates carried additional significance. Her mother had died three years before the visit to the barn, and the skates had become part of a larger cluster of shared memories — of family, of a sport that connected father and daughter, of a life that had changed.

The physical condition of the skates was poor. Years of storage had allowed rust to develop across the metal components. The leather sections were torn and fragile. The structural integrity of the boots had deteriorated to the point where they could not safely be used. Master cobbler Dean Westmoreland assessed the damage carefully, identifying what could be preserved and what needed to be replaced or rebuilt. His approach prioritised the preservation of original material wherever possible, treating the skates as the significant historical objects they were rather than simply as footwear in need of refurbishment.

Dean Westmoreland and the Restoration of Vintage Speed Skates

The restoration of leather sporting equipment presents particular challenges. Unlike metal or ceramic, leather is organic — it ages differently depending on how it has been stored, what it has been exposed to, and how much use it has received. The leather on Steve’s skates had reached a point of fragility that required careful handling before any active restoration work could begin. Dean worked to stabilise the most vulnerable sections before addressing the broader structural repairs.

The rust on the metal blade components required treatment to halt further corrosion and, where possible, to restore a clean surface. Speed-skating blades are precision-engineered — their geometry matters enormously to performance. Dean worked with the specifics of the blades’ condition, cleaning and treating the metal while preserving the original form. The goal, in this case, was not merely cosmetic. The skates were intended to be functional — capable, potentially, of returning to fenland ice.

When the restored skates were presented to Steve and Frankie, the emotional weight of the moment was clear. These were objects that carried a sporting career, a family bond, and a thread back to the early days when a young man put on borrowed skates and won his first race on frozen Cambridgeshire water. The craftsmanship that Dean brought to their restoration matched the care with which Steve and Frankie had preserved them across the decades. The skates were whole again — and with them, something of the story they contained.

The Repair Shop 2026: Craftsmanship, Memory, and the Value of What We Keep

The four restorations in this episode of The Repair Shop 2026 share a common thread despite their enormous surface differences. A miniature mill, a mantel clock, a carnival headpiece, and a pair of speed skates have nothing obvious in common — but each was brought to the barn by someone for whom the object represented a relationship that could not be replaced. In each case, the restoration was not an end in itself but a means of holding onto something that mattered.

The craftsmanship demonstrated across the episode — by Steve Fletcher, Fred Fletcher, Kirsten Ramsay, Cindy Welland, Brenton West, Rebecca Bissonnet, and Dean Westmoreland — was exceptional in every case. Each restorer brought specialist knowledge, careful judgement, and genuine engagement with the human story behind the object. The results were not just technically impressive. They were emotionally resonant in ways that reflect why this programme continues to find its audience.

Heritage is not a passive concept. It lives in the objects people choose to keep, to carry, and to bring back from the brink. The heirlooms in this episode are all different shapes and sizes, but they share the quality of having been held close by the people who brought them through the barn door. The Repair Shop 2026 demonstrates, episode after episode, that the act of repair is also an act of respect — for the maker, for the keeper, and for the memories that give an object its true value. In episode 16, that respect is visible in every repaired brick, every ticking second, every reshaped piece of copper, and every stitched seam of restored leather.

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