Bury St Edmunds Rail Station, Suffolk, UK

Bury St Edmunds is so iconic that Shakespeare himself used the infamous Cathedral for two scenes in Henry VI. The train station itself, dating back to 1847, was equally steeped in history, which is why when it came to replacing the rotting timber canopy, nothing but an exact Victorian replica design would do.

This historical landmark was in need of an upgrade, so HA Marks came to us. Using our Dagger boards, our expert fabrication team were able to exactly replicate the design. The design they went with, Florence, is now available as standard as part of the Dura Composites Daggerboard library.

Several years on, after this project was featured on the front cover of the Railway Heritage Trusts Annual report and nominated for multiple heritage awards, the canopy remains to this day as good as the day it was first installed.

Since then, we have expanded our range and now have over 30 designs as standard and you can now select our new additional heritage colours, like Light Beige and Flint. Our ability to create bespoke designs has only increased too. Our new 3D laser scanning service, working in tandem with our state-of-the-art CNC (Computer Numerical Controlled) Machine technology, is able to exactly replicate the design whilst vastly reducing the time needed on site and overall project costs.

Class B fire-rated, our Dura Daggerboards are better than ever, they are lightweight, non-conductive, efficient to install in comparison to traditional methods, and require virtually no maintenance over their 60 year design life. The project at Bury St Edmunds was a great project to be involved with and we have learnt a lot since then. We have developed our daggerboard product range to make them look even more authentic. We’ve invested in new tools like laser scanning, so that we can restore like for like designs and in some cases even restoring the original heritage look of century old canopies.

The legacy of this project and many more since is testament to our commitment to innovation. We are very proud of being able to provide modern materials with all the fire safety standards, low maintenance features to today’s standards, without compromising the character of the past.