On Top Of The World

Article from RoofLink magazine by Mary Rean 

A beautiful decorative copper dome dominating the roof of a contemporary home in the center of Auckland's Herne Bay is an eye-catching and unusual sight, but designing and installing it is all in a day's work fro copper and lead roofing specialist and crafts person Stephen Markham. 

English born Markham began his working career at the age of 16 as a plumbing apprentice, and by 21 he had acquired three City and Guilds London Institutes certificates- the premier UK qualification for craftsmen.  

"We learned the traditional methods," he says. "Then I did a second artists' apprenticeship under Richard (Dick) Murdoch, author of the lead sheet manuals, which are still the industry 'bible'. This apprenticeship covered designing and making everything from roofing and plumbing to casting statues and gargoyles, ornaments, spires, fruits...

"On the day that I passed the examination to be a master craftsman, I was given a set of tools dating back to 1500. They had been passed down over the years from craftsman to craftsman, and I still use them if I'm doing casting or special decorative work."

Owning- and sometimes using- a set of tools dating back to the 1500s may seem a little outmoded, but for Markham, it's a badge of honor. The tools have pride of place on a shelf in his office, he says. "When I first got the tools and put them in my hands, I could feel the history, the skills that had been passed down through the craftsmen who have used them." 

He has made good use of the tools after gaining his certification, setting up his own lead and copper roofing company in England, which he ran for 24 years. Within a year of starting his company he received the top award from the UK Roofing Association (the equivalent of the RANZ Roofing Excellence Award) for his work on the Royal Patriotic Asylum building in Wandsworth, London, where he renovated the sheet lead tower, complete with its intricate Gothic features and statues. 

From here, Markham went on to spend 15 years involved in repairs and renovations on the roofs and decorative detailing of various royal palaces in and around London- the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and the Italian Gardens in Kensington Gardens, Clarence House and Windsor Castle, where he spent many years undertaking restoration work after the devastating fire in 1992. 

Another of his businesses in the UK specialised in creating lead planters, statues and fountains, which were seen in many winning gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show, and Markham numbered among his clients Madonna, Jane Seymour and Oprah Winfrey. 

Then, in 2005, the Markham family packed their bags and headed to New Zealand, where Markham initially worked for Calder Stewart, before starting his own roofing and renovations company, Professional Roofing and Renovations, in Browns Bay, Auckland. With such a stellar CV, he secured projects such as carrying out sheet lead and copper work on the old part of the Auckland Art Gallery when it was renovated and extended, as well as historic churches and other buildings around Auckland. 

​"My beautiful old tools came into their own for the Art Gallery project," he says. "I made the time capsule there and used the tools for casting the decorative top on it." 

One Auckland project that he is particulary proud of it the copper dome that he has designed and crafted for the house in Herne Bay. "In a lifetime you might be lucky to get to create four or five specialist domes or towers. Jobs like that only come up now and then," Markham says. 

So, to be contracted to build a brand-new copper dome on a home in Auckland is very special, he says. 

The dome taking center stage on the Herne Bay house is 4.5m wide by 4m high, and finished with a wooden finial on the apex. Its totally custom made using interlocking copper shingles, with each one individually cast by hand. Because of the circular nature of a dome, the shingles on each row are slightly different in shape and size to those on the row below, and the next row of shingles cant be measured or cast until the row below is completed and installed. 

"A dome like this takes about five weeks to make. It is very labour-intensive, but the result is completely unique," he says. 

As a specialist in decorative detailing working mainly with materials such as lead and copper, Markham gets involved in both residential and commercial projects, often for historic places and churches. He says a lot of roofing today uses materials that are machined, rather than handcrafted, and don't require the more traditional skills. "But, most of the detailed work that I do can't be done by machines."

And as the only person in the country who specialises in lead work, Markham is the obvious contender for another project about to get under way: the restoration of decorative detailing on the Chief Post Office in Britomart, Auckland- one of the oldest buildings in New Zealand. Here, 10 tonnes of lead will be used to protect the stone corncing around the top of the building. 

While Markham doesn't generally take on standard roofing jobs, he does get called in when homeowners or architects want a creative or specialist design. He says that a popular new fashion at the moment is the Euro-tray seamed roof, which is formed from higher-end materials such as copper, zinc and aluminium. This roofing system which can be made in various shapes and profiles, is often used to achieve complex designs such as turrets and curved roofs, enabling a customised appearance, "Actually, this is the first form of metal roofing ever made and dates back around 400 years. We are seeing more and more architects choosing this very traditional style of roofing for their houses."