The Driftwood Pub in St Agnes is a Grade 2 Listed Public House within a Conservation Area, World Heritage Site, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, A Heritage Coast Site. The historic roof was fixed using traditional wet laid Random Width Diminishing Course Delabole or Trevillet slate fixed with pegs and oak batten lathes and bedded with Lime mortar.

The priority of the free hold pubs owners and the Architect was to replicate this traditional roofing method, using modern slating methods, that would be acceptable to the Cornwall Planning stake holders. The planning was again subject to conditional discharge due to the listed status of the pub and its position within the coastal regional of Cornwall.

The traditional slate sizes diminished from 18” to 12” slate. If the roof were to be replaced “wet laid” the cost of maintaining this historically important pub would not have been financially viable for its owners in the long term.

The SSQ Technical Specification Manager for the South West Region has worked extensively with the Cornwall Historic Environment Planning teams and engaged on a consultative process with the key planning stake holder to formulate a re- roofing strategy which would replicate this using traditional modern techniques to replicate traditional slating methods.

The technical specification team produced an NBS H62 document and method statement, which had been presented to the planning authority in general terms. This document then formed the basis of most Random Width Diminishing course slating application throughout Devon and Cornwall and the wider South West region.

The Riverstone Random Width Diminishing slating was chosen for its geological similarity to the Delabole and Trevillet slate quarries and its distinctive colour and patina.

The planners and Architects required a natural slate that performed in a similar way to the Indigenous slates of the UK in order to avoid the consequences of installing geologically inferior Spanish slate with a high calcium carbonate content and oxidising pyrite content.

Riverstone Random Width Diminishing course slate were installed with sizes including 450mm, 400mm, 350mm and 300mm random Riverstone slate fixed “Dry Laid” using copper nails on a modern roof construction fixed above the original timber and oak a frames and purlins.

The SSQ Technical Specification Team can provide the full details of planning and methodology if required.