Location: Little Vauxhall, Redruth TR15 1AS
Project: Kresen Kernow
Client: Cornwall Council
Type: Public building
Category: Refurbishment
Element: Roof
Product: SSQ Riverstone Ultra Grey roofing slate
Supplier: SSQ direct
Comment:

Kresen Kernow is the state-of-the-art facility that houses the world’s largest collection of Cornish documents, books, maps, and photographs, dating from 1150 to the present day.

The site provides a suite of public search rooms, conservation and preservation workshops, exhibition spaces, education rooms, and associated staff and volunteer facilities, while a new two storey extension provides archive storage in closely controlled environmental conditions, designed to BS5454 conservation standard.

For the roof, the building’s designers wanted the closest match possible to Delabole – the indigenous Cornish slate that’s now extremely difficult to source.

That made SSQ’s Riverstone Ultra Phyllite the obvious choice. Aesthetically and geologically similar to Delabole, according to independent experts, Riverstone was available without the years-long lead times associated with much indigenous slate.

SSQ were also able to assist the project’s architects with gaining planning approval, providing local authorities with slate samples, full technical specifications, and an NBSH62 planning statement.