We were approached by a client with a rather unique and challenging problem – their wrought iron veranda was literally being ‘gobbled up’ by a huge old wisteria plant. The ironwork was in desperate need of repair and reinforcement. The wisteria was slowly consuming it, some of the roof was pulling away and water was getting into the wooden canopy. The canopy was also buckling under the weight so we needed to find a solution to discreetly reinforce it. Our first challenge was to remove the metalwork so that we could repair it, whilst supporting the wisteria and the roof.
The gardener removed as much of the wisteria as he dared, without damaging the core structure and lovely organic shape. We worked with scaffolders who installed a frame around the whole structure to provide temporary support for the canopy roof. We carefully tied off the canopy and wisteria to this scaffolding framework and started removing sections of the ironwork – it was a tricky task and took the team several days to wrestle the pieces out!
We worked with Jon Avent, a Structural Engineer from Mann Williams and created a plan to reinforce the veranda by doubling up the material on each of the upright supports, bolting the new ironwork to the existing sections with neat countersunk fixings. We decided to introduce some heavy angle irons under the existing timber fascia beams, over each of the supporting leg where the gutters and rafters meet. We also reinforced each of the legs from below with invisible concrete pads poured underneath the 100mm thick penant flagstones.
The veranda roof incorporated three bays of antique georgian wired glass with lead covered glazing bars. We worked with The Standard Patent Glazing Co, Yorkshire to replace like-for-like glazing bars. Sadly, Georgian wired glass is no longer available so our client commissioned reeded glass panels made by bespoke glassmakers Float Glass Design as replacements. The original, rotten timber beams were also replaced where water had damaged them beyond repair.
We pieced the metalwork jigsaw back together in the workshop and made the additional reinforcement bars. The ironwork was all traditionally made, with elegant flowing scrollwork and cast lead flower details. Work began on reshaping and forming the antique metalwork, and forging replacement parts where needed. When this work was done the ironwork was painted in an off-white finish and the new metal elements that we introduced were galvanised for rust-proof longevity.
Once the original veranda structure was reconstructed on site around the house, we installed eye bolts with a wire cable system set well into the rafters to create robust hanging points for the wisteria. We fabricated stainless steel straps to curve around the stems of wisteria and used rubber to interface between the wire and the branches to avoid damaging them. These straps can be adjusted over time as the wisteria grows. We left one historic piece of ironwork fully enveloped in wisteria as a legacy to the project (see pics for evidence)
The original cast iron guttering was also refurbished and reinstated with new lead flashing above the roof. We designed a new gutter outlet where the structure had distorted over the years and the water run-off differed from the original design.
Once the scaffolding was removed and the weight of wisteria taken onto the new structure, it was possible to stand back and appreciate the challenges that this project had set us. Nearly everyone from the Ironart team worked on this project – Jason, Rick, Luke, Jake, Andy, Matty and apprentice Olly. Everyone did a great job, it looks really good and our client was delighted with the end result.