WELSH SLATE HELPS TO BRING HISTORIC CHURCH BACK FROM THE BRINK
7 March 2025
Welsh Slate helps to bring historic church back from the brink
A church on Historic England’s Buildings at Risk Register is enjoying a new lease of life with Welsh Slate.
An £8 million project to rescue one of central London’s most significant churches from Historic England’s Buildings at Risk Register is now complete, and topped with Welsh Slate.
Some 700m2 of Welsh Slate’s Penrhyn Heather Blue roofing slates now adorn the nave of the Grade I listed St Marylebone Parish Church in the Regents Park Conservation Area, and at 500 million years in the making, are proving a far cry from the temporary roof of sheet aluminium.
Designed by Thomas Hardwick, a pupil of Sir William Chambers, Architect to the King, and opened in 1817 at a cost then of £80,000, St Marylebone Parish Church was originally conceived as another Chapel of Ease supporting the work of the nearby parish church.
But later it was decided to enlarge the building and make it the 3,000-seater Parish Church. The present tower was erected, the front widened, and the gigantic Corinthian-columned portico built, with the fine Roman Renaissance-style frescoed apse added in 1884 by Thomas Harris.
It was the venue for Robert Browning’s marriage to Elizabeth Barrett in 1846, and for the baptism of the son of Charles Dickens, the ceremony being described in his novel Dombey and Son. A vaulted crypt, which extends under the whole area of the church, is now a Healing and Counselling Centre and NHS Marylebone Health Centre.
But all of this history was not enough to prevent the building suffering the ravages of time, as well as bomb damage during World War II, and in 2013, Caroe Architecture was appointed to develop architectural proposals for the crypt refurbishment and extension to provide high-quality flexible facilities for church, community and educational use.
Alongside their design proposals, a Quinquennial Inspection was completed, providing useful information about the condition of the building and the conservation work that was required, and a Heritage Statement was commissioned to inform Caroe’s developing proposals.
The project was awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of almost £4 million in 2016 and in 2019 the church’s “Changing Lives” £8 million fundraising campaign was launched to generate urgent funds to ensure the building could remain open. It is believed to have been the largest and most significant community project of that time in Central London.
Work comprised the new roof of Welsh Slate, which due to its density is regarded as the highest quality slate in the world, and newly-designed entrance and improved access, including a new lift and staircase to the redeveloped crypt hall community space, as well as the reinstatement of lost architectural features.
The Welsh Slate roofing slates, which are guaranteed for 100 years but frequently have a life of 150+ years, were installed over eight months by specialist contractors Mundy Roofing for principal contractor Sir Robert McAlpine.
Due to the project’s focus on sustainability, the reroof over open rafters and boards included high-specification insulation and a vapour control layer prior to a breathable felt under the counter battens onto which the roof slates were double-nailed with copper nails.
Russell Mundy commented: “This project was extremely challenging and we required regular in-situ workshops with the design team to overcome the design difficulties.
“For instance, the overflow details within gutters were problematic and creating unimpeded underside airflow through various details was extremely challenging. Then servicing the material across the whole roof area from one very small access point off one of the busiest roads in London was trying to say the least.”
He added: “However, we had fantastic support throughout from the Welsh Slate team.”
Robert McAlpine’s Special Projects Sector Director Mike Coleman said the contract was “a flagship heritage project which took St Marylebone off the heritage at risk register. It enabled St Marylebone to continue to serve its community and to be more accessible to all. To the design vision of some of the sector’s foremost consultants it was carried out to the highest standards by a select group of specialist partnering contractors.”
As well as utilising every tonne of slate for its optimum performance and value, Welsh Slate also minimises operational waste by re-using and recycling where possible and continuously looks to identify opportunities for use of operational process by-products.
