The story

This project is the full refurbishment of a derelict former railway station in Llanrug, Gwynedd, North Wales, right in the shadow Snowdon, into a family holiday home for a private client.

The building sat on the Caernarfon to Llanberis branch line, which opened in 1869 and closed to passengers in 1930. It has stood empty and deteriorating for decades. It is a project that demands as much judgement about an existing structure as it does construction capability.

Nolan Group was appointed as Principal Contractor for the full works, but our involvement began earlier. We consulted on the design against the client's budget, testing the scheme as it developed so the design that went forward was one the money could deliver. We then appointed both Building Control and the structural engineers on the client's behalf. On a derelict building, the structure has to be understood before the layout can be settled, and that order of work is what keeps the unknowns inside the contingency rather than outside the budget.

The works run from structural repair and stabilisation through to x2 new extensions with new services, external envelope and full internal fit-out, delivered on a remote site from our North West base.

The project demonstrates Nolan's ability to take a private client from an untested idea to a finished building, holding cost and programme certainty across a structure that gave up its secrets slowly.

Watch this space as pictures get updated over the coming months.