For the past nine months we have been working as historic building architects for the refurbishment works to the Tower top and interior at Blackpool Tower. These areas were opened to the public on 1 September. New features include the glass floor at the tower top.

Click here for a slide show of Andy Marshall’s new photographs of our conversion and extension of Summer Hill near Ulverston. The scheme consists of five apartments, and a new house for the owners.

View of the of the newly decorated ceiling and of the refurbished nave. Our scheme included the laying of a new stone floor with under-floor heating.

The Minster Church of St. John the Evangelist. A pioneering scheme of major repairs, refurbishment and new accommodation opening the building to community, arts and cultural uses. For the Diocese of Blackburn, with English Heritage and Heritage Lottery support. Completed 2001 (£1.5m).

The Buildings of England, Lancashire: North by Clare Hartwell and Nikolaus Pevsner is a survey of the most significant buildings in this area since Roman times. We are well represented in the book having perhaps the most entries of any contemporary architectural practice in Lancashire.

Selected excerpts

Preston: Outer, East: THE TRIANGLE. No. 3 is a house built in stages between 1967 and 2000 by Francis Roberts Architects. Apart from the latest swimming pool addition (2000), off to one side (somewhat classical in flavour), it looks all of a piece and very individual. It would be hard to identify the earliest part, yet nothing smacks immediately of the 1960s. A plot of uneven ground is exploited to create a layered effect. Dominant accents are the plain rendered walls, copper roofs, the raised windows and funnel-like roof-lights. Inside the juxtaposition of low, friendly, faintly Scandinavian rooms with plenty of timber, the outer spaces with views, and tall top-lit spaces in circulation areas (and some other places) is very effective.

Blackpool: ST. CHRISTOPHER, Hawes Side Lane. 1989-91, by Francis Roberts Architects,
Who aptly describes the style as ‘My interpretation of Arts and Crafts or picturesque functionalism’. There are debts to Lutyens, but the style is convincingly Roberts’s own, obviously modern, imaginative and responsive to the site and its surroundings.

On the Blackburn Cathedral Precinct development: The DIOCESAN OFFICES are in the former CHURCH SCHOOL, SW, a quite sizeable, asymmetrical Gothic building of 1870-1 by Frederick Robinson of Derby. They are to be relocated in new buildings on the s side of the Cathedral by Francis Roberts Architects…The proposals envisage the provision of clergy accommodation and private apartments around public and private open spaces. The design drawings show buildings of traditional forms, to be finished in stone and render. They will no doubt exhibit the usual intelligence and restraint of the practice.

One of our recent historic building projects. Repairing and renewing the roof of a Georgian house in Cumbria. More at Continuity in Architecture: LINK

We have just completed Phase 1 of the works at Lytham Methodist Church, replacing the slate roof and making repairs at roof level. The works had the benefit of a temporary roof so the contractor could continue through the worst of the winter weather. The works were finished four weeks early.
Francis Roberts Architects. AABC, Architect Accredited in Building Conservation.
Contractor: Lambert Walker, Preston

Fisher House Farm near Chorley, Lancashire is a three hundred year old Grade ll listed farmhouse that has been gradually falling into a ruinous state. The roof is missing and only three external walls remain. For many years our client was refused consent to rebuild and use the building. This year, following our work alongside Planning Consultant Nigel Robinson, our scheme for the careful reuse of the structure has been granted planning permission.

Summer Hill, Spark Bridge, Cumbria with Morecambe Bay in the distance. Phase 1 complete. Pictures taken in changing light, November 2007.

Our project for the interior decoration of St Peter’s RC Cathedral in Lancaster is included as an exemplar project in a new book called “Basics Interior Architecture: Form + Structure”.

This book at Amazon

A drawing of the west end of Blackburn Cathedral showing our scheme for a New Deanery, offices and clergy housing.

For more images click here.