About the Project

Oxburgh Hall, King’s Lynn

Restoration of roof and gatehouse at grade I-listed manor house, completed in 166 weeks.

Wayne Gray’s project started life as a simple emergency repair to a single dormer. It then grew and grew into an ever more daunting prospect. Further investigation exposed a structural weakness in the 15-century manor house’s roofline, forcing the replacement of 14 dormer windows, 27 ornamental chimneys, 14,000 clay roof tiles and the supporting timber structure. As if that weren’t enough, movement cracks in the wall plaster were then detected, leading to the discovery of major deathwatch beetle attack to the principal floor beams.

Noticing that some of the existing timber sections of the roof frame were actually softwood, Wayne led the move to execute the repairs on a like-for-like basis, rather than the specified oak, capturing significant cost savings while maintaining the structural longevity of the repair. His astute value engineering also encompassed the fabrication of the one-off stainless-steel angles required for structural strengthening by welding cheaply available sections together.

And with the building surrounded by a moat that made the scaffolding for the roofing works an enormous headache, Wayne helped drive the creation of a unique access scaffold. He had 900 tonnes of bagged sand craned into the moat water, dropping 150 1.5-tonne concrete blocks on top to project from the water and form a suitable scaffold footing.