Glendyne restores historic chapel to former glory

Cembrit Glendyne natural slates have been specified and installed on a unique renovation project for the Historic Hampshire landmark, Netley Chapel, which saw the local community contributing financially to the restoration project. Before slating began, the public were invited to site to mark the occasion and “sponsor a slate”. For a small donation, visitors wrote a message and signed the reverse of a roof slate. More than 900 Glendyne slates were decorated, raising £6,600 for the friends of the Royal Victoria Country Park. These slates were then installed on the roof of the chapel by Elliotts Premier Roofing of Southampton.

Royal Victoria Country Park was once the site of the world’s largest military hospital, the Royal Victoria Hospital (or Netley Hospital). Now, all that remains of the original hospital structure, which fell into decline after being severely damaged by fire in 1963, is Netley Chapel. Thanks to a multi-million pound grant from Hampshire County Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Victorian-era building has recently undergone extensive renovation, and now marks the beginning of a new chapter for the chapel.

Hampshire-based construction company, Brymor Construction was appointed as the main contractor for the project alongside roofing subcontractor, Elliotts Premier Roofing. Having worked with Cembrit many times in the past, Elliotts Premier Roofing selected 610mm x 305mm blue-grey Cembrit Glendyne natural slates for the refurbishment of the roof covering: “As one of the oldest companies in Southampton, it’s been a privilege for us to have played such a pivotal role in this project and work with other local organisations to restore this iconic chapel,” says David Stubbington of Elliotts Premier Roofing. “We chose Cembrit Glendyne slates for the project due to its flexibility to accommodate the roof design of the prestigious building. The end result is impressive and Glendyne really accentuates the character of the chapel.”

The chapel re-opened to the public in summer 2018. An exhibition in the main body of the chapel tells the story of the former hospital, from its beginnings in the 1850s, through the Boer War, and both World Wars up to the present day.

The project was completed in a timely fashion, and is one of the first to utilise the new large 24″ x 12″ (imperial) format. Netley Chapel was finished to an extremely high standard. Cembrit was on hand to offer support and advice for this landmark renovation project. “I assisted Hampshire Council with writing the roofing specification for this project,” commented Phil Wilden, Technical Manager Pitched & Small Element Roofing Products at Cembrit. “Throughout the roof construction phase, our Regional Sales Manager and I made routine visits to the site to ensure the product was being installed to the requirements of the specification and that of British Standard BS5534. This highlights the level of technical support that we offer our customers.”

Glendyne is a high quality slate that combines first-class performance with all the inherent beauty of natural slate, making it the ideal ‘natural’ choice for specifiers and roofers. Available exclusively from Cembrit in the UK, Glendyne is a distinctive blue-grey colour. The Glendyne quarry is one of the most modern slate quarries in the world. The quarry operates a quality management system based on EN ISO 9001 which is externally audited. This standard is adhered to rigidly, as are all quality standard procedures required by each regional market the quarry supplies.

Glendyne is tested to BS EN European standard, BS EN 12326-1:2014 which requires many of the laboratory tests (‘type testing’) to be performed at least annually and the factory production control (FPC) performed and recorded as a matter of routine by the producer.

To watch a video on the project, visit www.cembrit.co.uk/about/news/glendyne-restores-historic-chapel-to-former-glory