Newcastle Cathedral

Posted: 06 Jun, 2022

As part of a complete revamp to the Cathedral the external space around the building, needed to contrast seamlessly with the existing structure and the ongoing internal improvements. The client and architect settled on a predominantly mid-grey stone with interesting variable characteristics and an almost medieval style of bench design to fit in geometrically with the overall characteristics of the Cathedral.

We are very pleased to have been chosen to supply the stone and play our part in this very special project. This was a technically challenging bench design and we were tasked to produce the material item drawings for the factory production from the Architects drawings. We got the order just as the pandemic was causing us to go in to our first lock-down in March 2020. This meant that complicated information sharing had to be communicated accurately and shared from our various remote locations to ensure all details were assimilated correctly.

Our main supply was for large bench units cascading across five different terrace levels. The flame textured units included for both straight and radius sections as well as as corner pieces. These bench sections weighed up to one and half tonnes each and were supplied in our Ash Grey Portuguese granite. This is a predominantly mid-grey coloured stone with good technical strength characteristics and a good choice for this type of large seating units. Various details such as rounded edges, recesses, grooves, tapers and fixing holes had to be incorporated in to the production. The end result is quite stunning and fits in really well with the overall St Nicholas Cathedral Common Ground and Sacred Space Development.

We also supplied the kerbs, steps with inserts, splayed steps and tactile paving units.