A new lead roof for Sandringham? That’ll cost a royal mint, Your Majesty
EVERYONE deserves a decent roof over their head, which is perhaps why the Queen is spending a small fortune to ensure her bedroom at Sandringham is up to scratch.
The entire north end of Her Majesty’s Norfolk retreat has been covered in scaffolding while repairs worth an estimated £500,000 are carried out.
But unlike the taxpayer-funded £2.4 million work on Frogmore Cottage – the Windsor home of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – the replacement of the lead roof will be paid for by the Queen. The project will see a single new section craned into place later this summer.
Tom Skinner, of Pimlico Builders, a firm that has carried out similar work but is not involved in the Sandringham refurbishment, said creating the roof off-site and then installing it in one piece would reduce costs and improve quality. ‘There is a lot of welding involved with lead roofs so there are fire hazards,’ he said. ‘Making the section in a controlled environment allows better, more aesthetically pleasing joins because the tiles are not slipping around.’
Visitors to Sandringham House, which opens to tourists between April and October, are met by a notice apologising for any disruption. ‘Works are under way on the north end of Sandringham House to repair a large area of lead roofing which has remained untouched since 1870 when the house was built,’ it reads. ‘It is essential we carry out these works at this time of year when the weather is fair.’
The estate was bought by the future Edward VII as a country retreat for him and his then fiancee, Princess Alexandra of Denmark, and is traditionally where the Royal Family spend the Christmas period.
Buckingham Palace said: ‘As this relates to work on the Queen’s private estate, it is not something which we would comment on.’