THE ROOF RESTORATION has started as part of a Manchester museum’s multi-million heritage conservation project. It sees it renew a roof the size of two Olympic pools.

Work has begun on the Grade I listed 140-year-old New Warehouse building at the Science and Industry Museum’s site in Manchester city centre. The New Warehouse was formerly the world’s first intercity passenger railway station.

The works are part of £14.2m worth of urgent repairs, funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Scaffolding has now been erected around the museum site’s New Warehouse building, which will stay open to visitors throughout the works.

Sawtooth Roof

Its roof, measuring a total of 5,000m2, is constructed in a series of iconic sawtooth pitches. This is a design common to many industrial buildings of the period as it allowed the steeper pitch side to be glazed, flooding the warehouse floor with natural light.

The sawtooth roof architectural design was deemed revolutionary in the Victorian period as it enabled safer operation of machinery housed below.

Roof Restoration

The New Warehouse’s single-glazed rooflights will be replaced with heritage style double glazing to improve insulation values. The roof will be reslated with Welsh slate, chosen as they replace the original roof and are from the local slate quarries at Blaenau Ffestiniog in nearby North Wales.

The works are also designed to improve thermal efficiency, making the building more environmentally sustainable. Roofspace insulation made from environmentally friendly and natural wood fibres is specified to upgrade the roof to modern regulatory standards.

Sally MacDonald, Director of the Science and Industry Museum said, “Whilst this repair work will bring some disruption to our site, including our largest scaffolding structure to date, the changes taking place now will mean visitors can enjoy our museum for years to come.”

Heritage Skills

The museum said it will be taking inspiration from the site’s own live engineering projects to host construction, technical and heritage skills-themed activities for all ages.

The New Warehouse building, originally constructed in the 1880s, now houses the main museum entrance, three permanent galleries, three changing exhibition spaces, a café, shop and conference space.

The New Warehouse work is expected to be complete by mid-2025.

Further conservation work will continue at the site’s Upper Yard, to the Gantry structure and to the 1830 viaduct. These works will start later in the year.

Featured Image: Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), Viewed from the Beetham Tower by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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