It was like being reintroduced to a long-lost friend - albeit an old friend who had gone to pieces.

And who wouldn't buckle under the strain of being involved in a serious fire and having a large internal operation to allow for proper functioning in the 21st century?

But this well-known 103-year-old, which has occupied a large sick bed for the last 12 months, is about to pull itself together and enjoy a remarkable rebirth.

The man charged with the task of increasing this poorly patient's life expectancy is not a doctor - but a stone mason. And the patient who people are so keen to see recover is not a person - but a building.

Eastbrook Hall, flanking Little Germany, Bradford, was devastated by fire in 1996 and last year, the Grade II listed facade slipped and became unstable during a project to convert the building into 73 apartments while retaining the Leeds Road facade.

Masonry specialist Stone Edge Ltd was called in to carry out a rare operation to dismantle the structure stone-by-stone to save it from collapse, then reassemble it at a later date.

The stones which formed the facade - more than 1,500 of them - were taken by road to a large secure lock-up building on the outskirts of Brighouse, and it is in this gloomy building, hidden away from public view, where they have remained ever since.

As we walked round the lock-up, weaving in and out of hundreds of stones, Richard Denneny, director of Stone Edge, explained the complexities of the large jigsaw puzzle that lay ahead. He said: "These kind of jobs are not unheard of, but are still very rare.

"When the subsidence occurred, they called us. We won't earn that much money out of this and we are doing it for the prestige because there's no other job in this part of England which involves such extensive work to a building of such historical significance.

"When you dismantle a structure like this, there has to be a system of numbering the stones so you know they will fit back together. We prepared a draftsman to draw accurately the facade as it stood. As we dismantled each stone, we gave it a unique reference number which was then plotted onto the drawing.

"There are 1,165 stones for the facade and about 350 for the cupola."

In a building full of stones, there is one stone - number 186 - that clearly stands out.

Pointing to it, Mr Denneny, aged 37, said: "We sprayed that one with a love heart because it's the keystone to the arch. Without that stone, the whole thing would not go back together. It's the most crucial stone of the lot.

"The most difficult part of the job will be getting the central arch rebuilt but, providing the stones are all numbered up correctly, it will be okay.

"The bay in the middle curves out from the arch so all these stones are cut in geometric form so as to create a curve.

"If we were on site and somebody gave me a number and asked me where that stone went, I would be able to tell them off the top of my head because we have looked at it for so long.

The project to restore the former Methodist chapel is being tackled by a team of expert stone masons, who have spent the last ten years working in London on the royal households, the capital's museums and many historic facades.

Mr Denneny, originally from Hebden Bridge, said: "There will be plenty of new pieces to be carved by our stone masons. The new stone is from Darlington because that's the stone that most closely matches the original stone in terms of absorbing water, its colour and grain. The bulk of the masonry used in Bradford originally was from Bolton Woods but, as with many British quarries, there's nothing left of any substantial size."

Pointing to red marks on some of the original stones, Richard said: "These are the areas that were affected by fire and they must all be replaced because they are badly damaged."

He explained that 60 per cent of the blaze-ravaged pediments, a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section above the horizontal structure, would have to be re-carved in stone.

"The guys we have got together to do this work have been hand picked. They have worked in London on the Royal household and at Windsor Castle after the fire. The last job was the full restoration of Her Majesty's Treasury in Whitehall.

"One of our stone masons, who is 57, is coming all the way from Poulton-le-Fylde to Bradford every morning. There is work he could do closer to home but he's desperate to start rebuilding this because it's going to be such an achievement. At the peak, we will have 12 masons working on it. Because of the height of the building, it will be quite time-consuming to hoist up all the original stone . We will be using traditional lime water, so there will be no cement involved."

But, with such a process, would there be any lasting damage to the stones used in the structure?

Mr Denneny said: "If we dismantled a new building it would suffer some kind of damage. This building is more than 100 years old so there are bound to be some stones that are damaged.

"One of the problems is the loss of feature from the stones because a lot of the stone was already quite loose when the facade was standing. If you take it down, put it on a wagon, transport it, store it and then put it back up again, it does not do it any good whatsoever.

"But once it's back up, we can restore it and redress the details back into the stonework. We have to retain as much of the original fabric as possible, so we would not re-carve stones for the sake of it. About 20 per cent of the facade will be new stones."

The storage unit also contains Eastbrook Hall's original gates and the timber dome, which will be sent away to be re-skinned with copper.

Such is the prestige of the project that there is talk of Prince Charles coming to Bradford to officially re-open the historic building in a year, according to Mr Denneny.

After a prolonged period of poor health, Eastbrook Hall is on the mend and the prognosis for the future looks promising.

e-mail: will.kilner@bradford.newsquest.co.uk