September 2019
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Pitched & Flat Roofing<br />
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME:<br />
SIGNIFICANT YEARS IN BMI’S HISTORY<br />
With BMI UK & Ireland’s iconic BMI Redland brand celebrating 100 years of concrete tile<br />
manufacture in the UK, ahead of its formal celebrations later in the year, the company<br />
continues to look back over its 180-year heritage.<br />
While 1919 – when Redland was formed<br />
as the then Redhill Tile Company in<br />
Reigate, Surrey – was an important<br />
moment for pitched roofs in the UK, representing<br />
the start of domestic concrete tile manufacture,<br />
1923 proved to be almost as important for flat<br />
roofing when Icopal, then known as D Anderson &<br />
Sons, relocated from Belfast to Stretford,<br />
Manchester.<br />
At the time, Anderson was the first factory to<br />
make the area its home in what was then fields<br />
as far as the eye could see. Today, the factory,<br />
which is still the company’s main manufacturing<br />
plant for its BMI Icopal ranges, is in the heart of<br />
Manchester’s Trafford industrial district – with<br />
other global names such as Kellogg’s, Adidas and<br />
L’Oréal for neighbours.<br />
Some of the site’s original buildings remain and<br />
true to its reputation of creating roofs that last,<br />
one of the buildings features a rare engineered<br />
timber roof structure known as a Belfast Truss –<br />
designed, according to Construction History Vol.<br />
17, by Anderson-founder David himself.<br />
The industrial revolution brought about the need<br />
for clear span industrial buildings, which in turn<br />
inspired the development of a variety of timber<br />
truss types. And although so-called bowstring,<br />
barrel-form and other ‘chord and lattice’ truss<br />
roofs had been built since medieval times, the<br />
first “true” Belfast Truss – a clever laminated<br />
construction, designed to maximise the use of<br />
scrap timber – was fabricated by Anderson &<br />
Sons in Belfast in 1896.<br />
A few years later, after Anderson’s Manchester<br />
move, the general strike struck in 1926 and had<br />
a profound and positive impact on the popularity<br />
“One of the buildings<br />
features a rare<br />
engineered timber roof<br />
structure known as a<br />
Belfast Truss”<br />
of concrete tiles – owing to a resulting shortage<br />
of clay tiles; yet not so profound an impact as the<br />
Second World War.<br />
While the WW2 blitz wrecked a large number of<br />
British cities, it was London that bore the brunt<br />
with one million of the total estimated loss of the<br />
two million homes destroyed. The urgent need to<br />
replace these in the post-war period saw a huge<br />
surge in house-building and the Redland 49<br />
medium-format interlocking cambered tile<br />
became the roof covering of choice. Launched in<br />
1949, it was the first single-lap concrete tile and<br />
its use is still widespread throughout the city.<br />
Redland 50 Double Roman<br />
In slightly les -pressured circumstances, 1950<br />
saw the launch of the Redland 50 Double Roman.<br />
The first variable headlap tile, as the name<br />
suggests Double Romans hark back to the Roman<br />
invasion of Britain in 43 AD. The tiles are based<br />
on their imbrex and tegula tiles and modern<br />
Double Romans come as interlocking concrete<br />
Old Anderson and Redland adverts.<br />
tiles, mimicking the effect of the original ancient<br />
profile while being compatible with a wide range<br />
of fittings and accessories.<br />
In 1954, Redland invested £6,000 in a small<br />
German company, Braas GmbH: a name to become<br />
significant in the ultimate destiny of BMI’s much<br />
loved Redland brand. It was by now called Redland<br />
Tiles and, having purchased the Moorhouse Brick<br />
and Concrete Tile Product Company near<br />
Westerham, was publicly floated and quoted on<br />
the London Stock Exchange in 1955.<br />
As November’s concrete tile centenary<br />
approaches, BMI UK & Ireland will be highlighting<br />
more pitched and flat roofing key dates,<br />
innovation and achievements in its development,<br />
leading to the present day.<br />
Contact BMI UK & Ireland<br />
Pitched: 03705 601000 Flat: 0843 224 7400<br />
www.bmigroup.com/uk<br />
@BMIUKandIreland<br />
64 TC SEPTEMBER <strong>2019</strong>