Welsh Slate Supplies Extra-Long Roofing Slates for Kew Museum Roof

The historic Kew Bridge Steam Museum in Brentford by Kew Bridge on the River Thames in west London has been partially re-roofed with extra-long slates from Welsh//Slate.

Roofing contractor E J Roberts Roofing installed several sizes of Penrhyn Heather Blue slates supplied by Welsh//Slate on the roof of the famous 19th Century building. The largest slates were 53in long by 32in wide.

Welsh//Slate’s Michael Halle explains: “Normally, the biggest slates we supply are around 40in long and standard sized slates are around 24in long and 12in wide. We identified the existing slates on the museum’s roof and were able to match them perfectly. We then custom made the extra large slates for this specific project.”

The contractor was able to reuse around 70 per cent of the slates on the roof.

E J Roberts Roofing’s estimator, Paschal Fennelly, says: “We have confined the reused slates to certain elevations and installed the new slates on another elevation so that it doesn’t look like a patchwork quilt.”

He adds: “We often work on older heritage buildings and our main source of roofing materials for these is Welsh// Slate. They are excellent in terms of their service and their quality and they are also competitive on cost. They supply a premium product that nobody can compete with.”

Kew Bridge Steam Museum, which houses a museum of water supply and a collection of water pumping steam engines, was built in 1838 as a pumping station to supply London with water.