Trinity College maintains its campus with supplies from joinery specialist Quest

Trinity College in Oxford was founded in the sixteenth century as a training house for priests. The site was originally chosen for its quiet, rural location. The college now, in the present day sits very much in the city centre, but still enjoys a rural aspect through well maintained gardens within the grounds at the rear.

Trinity College has an onsite workshop, with 7 people who maintain the buildings, including  Maged Alyas, Workshop Supervisor who has been working at Trinity College for over 20 years.

The onsite team work together to keep the buildings in immaculate condition, preserving the historic buildings for the current 475 students and future generations.

The college buildings have 18 staircases in total, these are all conserved with repairs using wood finishing products. The main buildings are all listed, this means that all the windows need to be protected and not replaced, so the team must keep the timber windows in excellent condition and safeguard them from the elements all year round.

The team of 7 in the workshop includes a plumber, a handyman, an electrician, joiners and carpenters. Trinity College buys hardware supplies from Quest, a hardware and ironmongery supplier that specialises in supplying joiners with all the materials they need. Ordering can be done online, by calling the customer support team, or by placing the order with an area sales rep.

Maged Alyas, Workshop Supervisor, commented “I order our workshop consumables, ironmongery and power tools from Quest, each time I just make up an order from the items we are low on, I call Steve Hanson our sales guy at Quest or I call the office and then it’s delivered the next day”.

There is a lodge at the front of the College that is not listed, this allowed the in-house joiner to handcraft new timber windows in the workshop and used ironmongery including non-locking window stays, Victorian screw down casement stays and fasteners from Quest.

Maged added, “Quest specialise in supplying companies that work with timber and often older properties, Quest stocks the range of products that we need to complete our work and they also have specialist knowledge and experience that we can tap into if needed when placing orders”.

The Trinity College workshop also repairs and preserve their furniture, keeping it in good condition using products from Quest that ensure the traditional interiors are conserved for future generations.

Daniel Wells, Sales Director at Quest Hardware “It is an honour to supply such a prestigious College with hardware and joinery supplies. The workshop tradesmen are the custodians of this historic landmark and work hard to preserve the Trinity College interior and exterior. The buildings are always immaculate and retain hundreds of years of rich history which is shared with students, researchers, professors and tourists as a truly inspiring place to visit or study”.