This out-of-the-ordinary, double fronted home features an incredibly special timber roof and uninterrupted views of the local countryside – built with materials from C&W Berry.

Phil Syms and his team are building a unique home in Eccleston, Lancashire. Opting for a traditional timber roof which showcases exceptional joinery skills, we interviewed Tom Barron to find out why he uses C&W Berry to source his materials and why he’d recommend us.

We interviewed local builder, Phil Syms, and his team who have been loyal customers of C&W Berry for the last 30 years. He is currently building this premium domestic dwelling in Lancashire.

This large private build in Eccleston is unlike many other cookie-cutter style homes. Instead of the pre-fabricated truss roofs that are lifted with a crane, nailed down and stitched in place, this home features an intricately constructed timber roof which showcases the craftsmanship of the joiner, Tom Barron. It will also boast a long, winding driveway, leading the way to the double fronted entrance.

At the rear, the property enjoys incredible, uninterrupted views of surrounding fields and farmland. Phil and the team have taken advantage of this by allowing for full height windows to be fitted – flooding the house with natural light.

For this remarkable project, Phil and his team sourced around 75% of the materials from C&W Berry, including timber, bricks and blocks. Phil and his team appreciate the vast range of products that we stock, the friendly and helpful staff, as well as ease of ordering online or over the phone. As this build is one of two very large projects running simultaneously for Phil, he also appreciates the fact we offer speedy grab wagon delivery, paired with a wide selection of competitively priced materials.

The proximity of our 40-acre site to this build is another reason why Phil and his team choose C&W Berry to source materials, and why we remain their #1 choice when sourcing building materials.

Phil and his team appreciate the vast range of products that we stock, the friendly and helpful staff, as well as ease of ordering online or over the phone.

Well, basically we’ve been given all the joinery to do on this. So, roof down, throughout second fix. It’s a traditional cut roof with no trusses or anything like that. It has been fairly complicated in that there has been two different pitches meeting on the valleys.

So the valleys aren’t at 45 degrees which made it a bit complicated. We’ve also put aluminium fascia boards on and the tiles are Sandtoft Riviera.

It was about 5 weeks. But, by the time you account for all the extras like a dormer, fascia boards and stuff like that, probably about 8 weeks. We did have a nice bit of weather, actually, when we were doing it… but not too much. So probably another week now and then I can get the scaffolding down and move on.

It’s fairly all-encompassing. They’ve got everything all under one roof there... A one stop shop. You can just go in and get it. If you need to check anything you can have a look on the website and check timber sizes, lengths etc. So it’s fairly straightforward ordering.

Roughly about 75%.

Not all projects are as big as this… but probably about 30-40 projects a year. And I do use C&W Berry often. I’m certainly in there two or three times a week, at least. And I will source a lot of my stuff through there.

I’ve just had a bathroom from yourselves that I got from Paul in Berry Bathrooms. And I use the sheet materials department for MDF and things like that. So yeah, I use quite a lot of stuff from there and Planed All Round. I find it very helpful being able to just go into one place instead of going around several different merchants and not getting everything you need… which you can do at Berrys.

The whole thing really. I think the most challenging bit has been the fact that it’s two different pitches. So we’ve got 45 degrees on all the outriggers and the main roof, so to speak, is 39 degrees. So the valleys and everything are cut at 51 and 39 degrees respectively. Trying to work it all out on site has been fairly challenging but I think it has come together quite well. I am quite happy with all the joinery work on it so far.

The other thing is just the sheer weight of timber that’s gone up. We must have put up 5-6 cubic metres of timber on the roof on here. Whereas on a modern house, with a truss roof, its all lifted up on a crane and nailed down and stitched in place and that’s your lot, it's all sort of prefabricated… whereas something like this requires a lot more thinking about. 

I’ve got some hardwood fascias to do… I have to finish my mum's bathroom off which she has been on about for a fair while! In fact, I've got a floor that’s coming into Berrys this week. So I’ve got flooring to go down, quite a bit of my workshop, and oak doors to make up, things like that. 

Yeah. I can’t really recommend them enough to anybody in the trade. I’ve always found the staff very helpful, especially in the plumbing department and the shop. I know quite a lot of the lads on the counter in there, they’ll always do as much as they can for you. I think they’re very, very helpful.

As I say, you can pretty much get everything boxed off in one trip. But yeah, I’d certainly recommend them.