Sudbury Rooflights Revival

Glaziers from East Anglian company Kent Blaxill have signed off a complex reglazing contract that involved reconditioning and reinstalling 10 large Victorian rooflights on the grade II listed Sudbury Library. It was a unique and challenging project with each piece of glass having to be individually cut and fitted, and with every detail having to be approved by English Heritage. The 9 sq m metal rooflight frames, each containing 108 pieces of individually shaped and sized glass, had to be dismantled into 12 separate segments and tagged accordingly as each lantern light is a unique size. The frames were then sent away for shot-blasting and repainting with seven coats of English Heritage-approved paint. Once the rooflights had been reinstalled, a total of 1,080 individually cut replacement panes of 6mm toughened Grey Anti-Sun Solar Control glass were glazed into the frames. The Anti-Sun glass is tinted with a pigment to control heat and glare in the library below. In all, it took four glaziers seven weeks to complete the specialist project on what was once the town’s Corn Exchange, built in 1841.