Rochdale’s Grade II listed Touchstones building is finally getting a proper hat, after council officials admitted the current one had all the structural integrity of a Wetherspoons napkin in a thunderstorm.
The multi-million-pound renovation project, already billed as “the most exciting thing to happen to a roof since Noah,” has received the green light to go ahead with the next phase: replacing the historic roof with a slightly less historic but far less leaky version.
The current roof, an architectural tribute to damp, was described in planning documents as a ‘patchwork of 19th-century ambition and 20th-century disappointment’, featuring original slate tiles, emergency clingfilm, and the shattered dreams of previous maintenance budgets. Experts believe that just 25% of the original slate is salvageable, although local pigeons have petitioned for the rest to be preserved as a heritage nesting site.
“This is a significant moment for Rochdale,” said a council spokesperson, while dodging a ceiling drip. “Touchstones is a landmark. A proud, slightly crumbling, definitely leaking landmark. But now it will be proud and watertight. We hope.”
The repairs will include re-slating with Westmorland slate, replacing lead flashings, and finally admitting that plastic downpipes on a Victorian Gothic building were, in hindsight, a mistake akin to putting Crocs on the Queen.
Architectural firm Donald Insall Associates gushed about the building’s “complex roofscape,” citing its gable ends, fleche ventilators, and other things that sound made up but apparently aren’t. “It reflects Rochdale’s commitment to public culture, education, and mildly terrifying gargoyles,” said one consultant, while stroking a brick.
While the council concedes the changes will result in ‘neutral harm’ to the building’s heritage, they argue it’s better than the current ‘ongoing water-based catastrophe’. Critics of the plan were unavailable for comment, largely because they’re stuck in the lift at Number One Riverside.
The new roof is expected to restore the building’s former glory, provided the funding doesn’t vanish like the last three arts budgets. Work will begin just as soon as someone finds the special Victorian screwdriver needed to remove the ancient weather curses embedded in the chimney.
Reporting from down the M62, this is your damp and disgruntled correspondent reminding you: if it isn’t leaking, it isn’t Rochdale.
