Visitors Centre On Marley Eternit Sheeting

Fibre cement profiled sheeting from Marley Eternit has helped a farming family to diversify … and visitors to their home enjoy nature on and off the west coast of Wales. The Jenkins family have turned their sheep farm near Gwbert into Cardigan Island Coastal Farm Park which sits on an exposed headland overlooking the nature reserve of Cardigan Island just 200 yards off shore in Cardigan Bay. The island is home to thousands of nesting sea birds and a flock of wild Soay sheep that hail originally from the Isle of Soay, south of Skye in Scotland. The waters between the island and the mainland are home to a colony of Atlantic grey seals which breed in the caves below the farm park cliffs, and the only resident population of bottlenose dolphins in English and Welsh waters. Animals on the farm itself include llamas, rheas, emus and wallabies, and more commonly, pigs, sheep, goats, rare breed cattle, Shetland and Welsh Mountain ponies, chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, ducks, geese and Dilwyn the donkey. Facilities for visitors include an adventure playground, children’s sandpit, picnic tables for the consumption of refreshments available from the farmhouse, and tractor and trailer rides to the seal viewpoint. The most recent addition to the park, which is open seven days a week in the summer, is a visitors’ centre that is styled on a traditional farm barn but contains a gift shop, Welsh ambience restaurant, indoor play area and interpretative section. But while the unusual shape of the coastline creates sheltered, calm waters near the island, the same cannot be said for the exposed cliff tops that are subject to extreme weather conditions and a salt-laden corrosive atmosphere. The walls of the steel-framed visitors’ centre are brick and block but whatever it was roofed in had to be up to the particularly challenging job and architects Llwyd Edwards specified Marley Eternit’s Profile 6 fibre cement sheeting which is commonly used for livestock buildings as it minimises condensation. Its low-maintenance fibre cement substrate also makes it highly resistant to corrosive atmospheres as well as fire (Class 0 performance) and sound transmittance. High vapour permeability allows any moisture collected by the sheets to dry out naturally. However, given its internal use this time, an insulated system was required so gunmetal grey sheets of Profile 6 for blending into the landscape as well as weathering were lined to minimise thermal bridging with 70mm insulation board whose white embossed aluminium foil is visible from below. Natural light inside is maximised by two rows of pairs of translucent sheets on each of the two pitches, all installed by Amery Roofing. Architect Llwyd Edwards said: “We know Marley Eternit’s profiled sheeting to be a good product as we have used it in the past. It is easy to install and competitively priced and there was a cost element involved.”

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