Quantity surveyor Frank Edwards was impressed to find when he started to renovate a house he had bought in Ulverston, Cumbria, that the Cumbrian slate roof was the same one put on the house when it was originally built in the 220 years ago. He discovered the slates were fixed with oak pegs hooked over ash or birch battons, indicating they must have been there since the house was built in the 1780s. And they had protected the timber so well it was possible to retain it. New roofing slate is being supplied for the restoration by Burlington in nearby Kirkby-in-Furness from the same quarries that would have supplied the original roof.