Midland Bank & HSBC
Formerly known as Midland Bank, this Grade II Listed building occupies a prominent corner site in Carlisle city centre. It was originally built in 1849 and refaced in 1898 for the Carlisle City and District Banking Company. In the 1920s, architect T. Taylor-Scott built an extension for the London Joint City and Midland Bank. In 1997, The Midland Bank was purchased by HSBC. And by 1999, the name had vanished from the high street as all Midland Banks became HSBC branches.
Damage To Roof
The building had been suffering considerably from damp under the dormer window area and early signs of rot were present. The building underwent a structural inspection by Kingmoor Consulting using a 50m reach access platform to inspect the roof. Once complete, we decided upon the removal of slates, lathes and underfelt to the rear roof including around the dormer window.
Leadwork And Guttering Restoration
The full extent of the works was not known until the scaffold was in place. Once we’d inspected fully, we could strip and open up the roof to access the damage and extent of the works. However, the scaffold could only be erected on Sundays. The HSBC building is a working bank in a city centre, so weekday work was deemed too dangerous. With high footfall in a populated area, work was restricted to when the bank was closed. It was positioned from the ground across the rear wall landing at the base of the dormer window to the rear.
The existing lead ridge was removed, cut down into manageable pieces and removed from site. Slates were carefully removed and stacked on the scaffolding for later reuse. The existing cast iron gutter was removed ready to be replaced by a new deep flow gutter. This also included a downpipe to the rear wall to ensure water was carried away sufficiently from the building. Our leadwork was treated with patination oil, which we applied on the day of installation.
The site manager identified items requiring replacement, and all the damaged pieces were removed. We replaced each one with new Douglas Fir timbers, cut in our joinery workshop to match existing dimensions. Finally, these were all coated with Linseed Oil paint. New breathable roofing felt was installed to the rafters, followed by the relaying of existing slates with new lead soaker where required. Our Restoration Operatives really enjoyed working on this project and residing in the local town whilst executing works.
Don’t forget to keep yourself updated with our projects on our YouTube channel
