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heritage tiling, encaustic tile installation, cathedral stone flooring

Salford Cathedral: Encaustic Tiling & Heritage Stone Flooring

Client -

Diocese of Salford

Main Contractor -

Architect -

Purcell — Tom Brigden & Ross Whittle (Cathedral Architect: Christopher Cotton)

Location -

Sector -

Heritage restoration

Area tiled -

900+ m²

Services used -

Encaustic tile installation, Natural stone flooring, Installation over underfloor heating

Programme -

Circa three-year programme

Overview

The Challenge

When the Diocese of Salford commissioned the restoration of the Cathedral Church of St John the Evangelist, the brief carried two inseparable ambitions: restore the Victorian interior after decades of unsympathetic alteration, and make the building the most sustainable historic cathedral in the country. Nowhere do those ambitions converge more completely than in the floor — and few floors are more demanding to install.

The poor-quality 1950s concrete floor was lifted in its entirety. In its place went a new heritage floor carrying underfloor heating, insulation, power and data — the first time the cathedral has been heated since 1850. Above that hidden infrastructure sits the visible result: handcrafted encaustic tiles by Craven Dunnill Jackfield, set within contrasting Grub and Thornback Purbeck limestone from Haysom Purbeck Stone, fixed and grouted with ARDEX and BAL tiling systems over a Jupiter dry underfloor heating system.

Three factors made the installation exceptionally difficult.

An imperfect building

This is a listed structure with none of the geometric regularity of a modern build. As Purcell partner Tom Brigden put it, "the walls are not square and not plumb." Every setting-out decision had to reconcile a precision floor with a building that is anything but precise.

Unforgiving materials

Encaustic tile patterns are inlaid one to two millimetres into the body of each tile, and on the larger panels the design runs continuously from tile to tile. Any setting-out error is immediately visible across the whole floor. At Salford that meant bespoke 25-panel bay patterns, continuous border runs and coat-of-arms centrepieces, all aligning across the full length of the nave.

A live, constrained programme

Encaustic tile lead times ran to 24 weeks. The site offered a compound large enough for just one skip and one wagon, so nothing could be made and stockpiled in advance — everything arrived in zones, exactly when needed. Bespoke joinery and wrought ironwork followed close behind the floor, zone by zone, while underfloor heating, power, data, floor boxes and organ services all had to be coordinated beneath it.

ABM's Solution

ABM Tiling was appointed as the specialist heritage tiling and natural stone contractor, working under main contractor Simpson of York and conservation architects Purcell, who worked alongside the Cathedral Architect, Christopher Cotton. Our role set the rhythm of the entire project: because the floor governed when every other specialist trade could follow, the programme was phased around our deliveries from the outset.

Setting out for accuracy at scale

The defining technical demand was pattern continuity. We set out the bespoke encaustic bays, borders and centrepieces so that the inlaid patterns flowed unbroken across enormous expanses — in a building whose walls offered no reliable datum. Purcell senior architect Ross Whittle put a number on what was achieved: a domestic setting would typically allow around 10 millimetres of tolerance, and a building of this size and complexity would normally allow more again. "I think we've achieved far less than that, in a much larger space. The installation is superb."

Integrating the encaustic and the stone

The Craven Dunnill Jackfield tiles — handmade in Ironbridge using the same plaster-mould and slip-clay techniques as their Victorian predecessors — were laid alongside contrasting Purbeck limestone: the pale, fossil-rich Grub and the darker Thornback. The two materials had to read as one considered floor. Cris Cox of Craven Dunnill Jackfield, who understands the laying challenge from the maker's side, was direct: "It's equally difficult to lay them as to make them. The installation is key — and the installation, in this case, has been absolutely super."

Building over hidden services

This floor does far more than a floor normally does. It carries underfloor heating pipework, power and data cabling, floor boxes and organ services. We coordinated the tile and stone installation around that infrastructure so none of it is visible in the finished space — what Brigden described as "phenomenally complicated" coordination demanding "really skilled craftspeople to bring it all together."

The right tiling system for sensitive stone

Working with ARDEX and BAL, the floor was fixed and grouted using rapid-dry technology specified for the limestone, minimising the risk of water staining and curling on the sensitive stone substrate — essential where a 19th-century building must meet 21st-century building regulations.

Working as one team

From interview stage the client insisted the project be delivered collaboratively. We planned the phasing directly with Simpson around the 24-week tile lead times, coordinated zoned deliveries through a single-skip compound, and worked hand-in-hand with Haysom on the stone yield — the central-aisle triangle detail was designed specifically to stretch the material from a thin, finite deposit.

The results

The finished floor is the centrepiece of a restoration already moving its first visitors. Parishioners and cathedral staff brought in for previews were, in the words of Simpson project manager Neil Moss, "absolutely thrilled… people in tears." For Ross Whittle of Purcell, the achievement is one of time as much as craft: "The whole thing feels like it's been here since the Victorian period… we've managed to transcend time."

Asked for the main contractor's verdict on ABM Tiling, Simpson construction director Mark Cregan kept it simple: "The quality is exceptional. The finished product speaks for itself of how ABM have performed. You just need to look at the floor."

Key takeaways

Heritage precision at scale — setting-out tolerances tighter than domestic standard across hundreds of square metres, in buildings with no square walls.
Complex floor build-ups — proven coordination of tiling over underfloor heating, power, data, floor boxes and services, all concealed in the finished floor.
Programme leadership — where a floor governs the wider programme, ABM plans phasing directly with the main contractor to keep every trade moving.
Specialist material handling — confident installation of handcrafted encaustic tile and natural stone, with correctly specified tiling systems for sensitive substrates.
Genuinely collaborative — trusted by leading conservation architects and heritage main contractors to work as part of an integrated team.