A CLEANING company organised a free spruce up of an historic monument.

Michael Fury owns MitieClean Cumbria, a property maintenance company in Barrow, that specialises in building cleaning of both residential and commercial premises.

They finished cleaning up a grade II listed monument in Ulverston cemetery.

Michael and his co-worker completed five sessions to clean Wilson’s monument between December 2 and March 6.

The monument is a tribute to Dr Thomas Watkins Wilson which was commissioned with stonemasons Affleck's of Ulverston by his daughter in the early 20th century.

Built as a replica of a lighthouse, the marble is carved with rocks and waves around the base, a doorway, and a glass lantern. The base is carved with an anchor and chain, and inscriptions including: 'Thomas Watkins Wilson MD', who 'Fell asleep at 20 minutes to 7 on Friday evening January 15th 1897...', and 'Every year for 15 years we were wont to spend some months at Conishead Priory'.

Michael said they started by staming off the surface layer of algae with their patented ThermaTech.

The algae left the stone stained so they used their specialist cleaning gel with a paint brush to exfoliate the pores of the marble.

The whole monument took abut 40 hours to clean.

Michael said: “I took it upon myself to do it really. I had noticed the monument many times and one day I thought I would do it. I just knew it would look amazing once it was restored.

“We have some fantastic photos of before, during and an epic video of how we’ve done it. It’s probably the first time in many people’s lives it’s been this clean."

MitieClean can be found at 13 The Strand, in Barrow.

It offers services including commercial cleaning, graffiti removal, masonry, gutter and uPVC cleaning, paint removal, power washing, as well as render, roof and window cleaning.