St Martin's Goes Back To The Future With Welsh Slate Roofing

Welsh//Slate has supplied roofing slates from both its Penrhyn and Ffestiniog quarries to provide a like-for-like replacement for an old 19^th century roof at London’s famous St Martin-in-the-Fields church complex through roofing contractors NDM Leadsheet Specialists Ltd working for main contractor Costain Ltd.

Known as the ‘Church of the Ever Open Door’, St Martin-in-the-Fields takes Christian principles into the community and has been using its crypt and 1830’s burial chambers to help people in need since 1948.  The invaluable work helping vulnerable homeless people at The Connection at St Martin’s is now being given a lift as part of a £36 million site-wide renewal programme.  The work includes demolition of part of the old burial chambers with Eric Parry Architects designing a purpose built refurbishment that will offer flexible and inspirational surroundings for both staff and clients.

As part of the refurbishment of the Georgian Nash terrace  the old Welsh//Slate roof was removed.  However, the architects were keen that the refurbished buildings would retain some of the character of the old structure and therefore specified 500 x 300 mm Capital grade slate roofing tiles from Welsh//Slate for the roof.  The original roof had ‘Heather Blue’ tiles from Penrhyn Quarry down one slope and ‘Blue Grey’ tiles from Ffestiniog Quarry down the other and Welsh//Slate was able to provide a like-for-like colour scheme for the replacement roof.

Explained Alan Smith, managing director of Welsh//Slate, “When the original roof was put on, Welsh//Slate was a commodity product and it probably wasn’t specified as a two-tone roof, but simply made use of the product available.  These days it’s a much more specialist building material and I am delighted that we have been able to supply an exact match to the original roof, helping St Martin’s to maintain its rich heritage whilst taking its mission for pastoral care to the next level.”