HISTORIC PIER GETS A NEW CROWN THANKS TO WELSH SLATE
6 June 2025
The prince of Welsh slate meets the former Prince of Wales.
An Edwardian pier with Royal connections is enjoying a new lease of life, thanks in part to Welsh Slate.
Some 800m2 of Welsh Slate’s Penrhyn Heather Blue roofing slates were specified by local planners for the reroof of the Royal Terrace Pier in Gravesend, Kent, where Princess Alexandra of Denmark, later Queen Alexandra, landed in the 1880s before her marriage to the then Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.
The Port of London Authority (PLA), which has owned the building since the early 2000s, has invested £800,000 in replacing the roof and refurbishing the interior of the pier, a Grade II listed building that dates from the 1840s.
Royal Terrace Pier, which is next to the PLA’s new-look control centre, is the base for vessels in the authority’s pilotage, hydrographic and harbour service operations for the Thames, and also home to Gravesend lifeboat station, which is manned 24 hours a day.
The reroof by specialist sub-contractors Accurate Roofing took 21 weeks. The 12,500 Welsh slates were fixed over the boarded roof which was counter battened, then felt and battened, with copper nails and the ridge, valleys and hips completed in Code 5 lead as befits the historic structure.
Accurate Roofing’s contract manager Andy Best said: “This project was a little more challenging than normal as the pier is over the Thames. But the Welsh Slate performed very well. Both the team and I were very proud to be a part of this project as we are all local to the Gravesend area. It was a privilege to work on such a heritage structure.”
The Accurate Roofing team included Andy’s son Jack who was the site supervisor and ran the project on a daily basis.
Richard Hopperton, the PLA’s head of procurement, said: “The Pier is a Grade II listed structure and subject to all the planning constraints that come with that association. The council, as part of their planning approval, were insistent that the roof be replaced like-for-like with a condition that this be Welsh slate rather than Canadian.”
He added: “The finished product is an excellent job, with everyone really pleased how it turned out.”
PLA’s civil engineer Nick Jordan added: “This is a major refurbishment, which is being fully managed by the PLA’s civil engineering team. The project includes the use of local roofing specialists and uses Welsh slate, which is in keeping with the original materials used on this important and historic building. Once this is completed, the interior will be refurbished which will secure the future use of the building.”
The PLA is also investing £10 million in the new state-of-the-art control centre as the amount of traffic passing through the river is expected to grow significantly by 2050, with passenger journeys expected to rise from five million to 20 million. This is due to an increasing leisure sector and a change in shopping habits since the pandemic as more is bought online and shipped into the UK.
