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Nelson's Column has been surrounded by scaffolding for the last four months. (Picture: Martina Smit)

Battle-weary Admiral Nelson has had his broken arm x-rayed, his cast removed and his bones replaced with special stone - and now he is fit to face the pigeons once again.

The £420,000 operation to repair the naval hero and his 151ft column in Trafalgar Square has taken four months.

Stone masons used rare Craigleith sandstone - the material used to make the statue - to restore his left arm struck by lightning in 1888. For more than a century, the limb has been held together by three bronze straps around the elbow plus patches of mortar and cement.

Modern radar scans showed the arm was not permanently broken, as Victorian restorers had feared, but could be repaired with stonework.

Since the closure of the Craigleith quarry in Scotland over 60 years ago, the sandstone has been near-impossible to obtain. But then an unexpected "organ donation" occurred: Craigleith stone was salvaged from an A-listed building in Edinburgh, Donaldson's School for the Deaf, and handed to Nelson's restoration.

It is only the third complete face-lift in the column's lifetime of 163 years. The job coincides with the ongoing bicentenary of Horatio Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Although the admiral died at the heat of battle off the Spanish coast, he crushed Napoleon's Bonaparte's dream of conquering Europe.

First commissioned in 1812, design quarrels delayed the monument's completion for more than 30 years. In the end it cost £47,500, or £3.5 million in today's money. With his chest full of medals, bicorne on top and amputated right arm, the old mariner still peers to the liar of his Gallic enemy in the south.

Experts steam-cleaned the entire Grade II-listed structure with gentle air abrasives to remove bird droppings, algae and grime. Layers of old wax were also stripped from the bronze panels and four lions at the column base. The scaffolding will be removed over the next two weeks.

Adrian Attwood, from David Ball Restoration Limited, which carried out the restoration work, said: "Our philosophy at the start of the project was that we would repair Nelson as carefully as if it were a statue at ground level.

"Using the Craigleith stone and repairing Nelson's arm means that we have exceeded our own expectations. We leave Nelson looking much better than he has for many years."

The only bad news for the seasoned hero was his lack of height. A laser survey, the first ever done on the landmark, found he only stood 169ft tall - instead of the often quoted 185ft.

12:54pm Tuesday 11th July 2006

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