Traditional leadwork and roof repairs:

Balgray House

Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire · 2025

Our role: Main contractor
Client: Private client
Architect: Luke Moloney, Architect
Quantity surveyor: Morham + Brotchie
Value: Under £0.5m
Programme: July to December 2025
Scope: Code 8 lead valleys, gutters and flats, lead flashings, slating, chimney masonry, rooflight and curved glass repairs

Balgray House is a red sandstone country house outside Lockerbie, with balustraded parapets, a glazed porte cochère and a complex roofscape of slated pitches, lead flats, valley gutters and rooflights. For its private owners we carried out a conservation-led programme of roof and chimney repairs, at the heart of which was the renewal of the leadwork across the whole roof, dressed by hand on site by our own leadworkers.

Balgray House, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire — photograph 1

Balgray House, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire — photograph 2

Balgray House, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire — photograph 3

Balgray House, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire — photograph 4

Balgray House, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire — photograph 5

Balgray House, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire — photograph 6

The challenge

Failing lead valleys, gutters and flats were letting water into the house, including over the former kitchen wing, and the curved glass panels over the entrance steps had broken. The work had to be carried out on a lived-in house, over rooflights lighting the principal rooms below, with every stripped area kept dry and no fixings into the historic masonry.

Our solution

Before stripping, we measured and photographed every roof and marked the original slate coursing on gauge rods, then set aside the Cumbrian green slates for reuse. The old lead was taken up and the boarding beneath repaired, then new timber rolls were formed and the valley gutters, valleys and flats relined in Code 8 lead, laid in bays with rolls, drips and laps to the Lead Sheet Association's guidance so the sheets can move without splitting. Code 6 lead flashings, soakers, watergates and aprons were dressed around the chimneys and rooflights, the triangular and pitched rooflights were set in new lead surrounds, and raggles were sealed in hot-mixed lime. Sarking was repaired only where needed, a breathable membrane laid, and the slates relaid to the original coursing, topped up with matching slate. On the porte cochère, new curved panels in toughened laminated glass, etched to match the originals, were bedded in linseed oil putty within the lead-sheathed barrel roof and secured with copper clips. Six chimney stacks were DOFF cleaned and repointed in lime, damaged copes were pinned with stainless steel and rebuilt in lime mortar repair, and the cans and haunches were rebedded in Hourdex and fitted with ventilated caps.