Introducing the Walton Scroll™ Railing System
In 2024, we introduced our latest design, the Walton Scroll™ railing system, developed particularly for smaller and medium-sized Victorian and Edwardian properties. Its carefully balanced proportions and traditional detailing make it especially suitable for period property frontages.
Please contact us for further details and photographs of completed installations.
Continuing Our Tradition of British Manufacture
The years during and following the pandemic have presented considerable challenges for British foundries, with the closure of many long-established businesses and the loss of highly skilled craftsmen and specialist manufacturing expertise.
Combined with substantial increases in energy and production costs, these changes have affected the industry considerably.
Despite these challenges, we have successfully established new foundry partnerships, ensuring the continued British manufacture of our distinctive cast iron railing and gate systems without compromising their traditional designs or quality.
The Advantages of SG Cast Iron
All our railing and gate systems continue to be manufactured in Britain using SG (spheroidal graphite) cast iron, chosen for its strength, durability and suitability for architectural applications.
Unlike traditional grey cast iron, which can be comparatively brittle and more susceptible to impact damage, SG iron offers greater ductility, tensile strength and resistance to fracture.
An important advantage of SG iron is its suitability for specialist welding, repair and modification, allowing bespoke adjustments to accommodate individual site requirements where necessary. This flexibility is particularly valuable when working with existing walls, historic boundaries and irregular site dimensions.
SG iron retains the traditional appearance, fine detailing and distinctive profiles associated with architectural cast iron, while offering improved mechanical properties.
The Architectural Benefits of Cast Iron
Traditional cast iron railings offer a richness of form, proportion and decorative detail that is difficult to achieve with modern fabricated steel alternatives, often described as wrought iron.
The casting process allows intricate moulded profiles, raised decorative features and consistent repetition of design, creating an elegant and balanced appearance across both short frontages and longer boundary runs.
Unlike fabricated steel railings, which commonly rely on individually welded components, cast iron sections incorporate much of their decorative detail directly within the casting, providing a more integrated and authentic traditional appearance.
For period properties in particular, these qualities make cast iron an attractive and enduring choice, offering architectural distinction, consistency and long-term value.
Supply, Finishing and Installation
Our railing and gate systems are available as individual unfinished castings or supplied drilled, primed or finish-coated, with suitable fixing kits where required.
All components are produced in manageable sections to assist handling, transport and installation.
Our standard protective finish is a specialist powder-coating system selected for cast iron applications, with alternative finishes available to suit individual requirements.
We are happy to offer advice on product selection, architectural suitability, installation arrangements and appropriate finishes, taking into account the character of the property and its environmental setting.
Enquiries and Project Advice
We welcome enquiries from property owners, architects, surveyors and contractors considering traditional cast iron railings and gates for new or existing properties.
To help us advise on the most suitable arrangement, please provide details of your proposed project, ideally including photographs of the property frontage, approximate wall lengths and heights, and any requirements for gates.
Dimensional information for our railing, gate and post components can be found on our Products page.
Alternatively, please complete the enquiry form on our Contact page, including as much information as possible about your proposed installation.
For details of our photographic design and visual impression service, please refer to the information above.
Steel fabrication versus Casting
22nd March 2018 (independent author)
Steel fabrications and castings are often considered for the same project as they share very similar properties. Generally, castings provide better tolerances and superior mechanical properties.
Castings allow designers to be visually creative and explore exciting forms. It enables shape and form where fabrications cannot. Cast parts are specifically designed and engineered to suit, and only put material where it is wanted. In contrast, the form of a fabrications is typically driven by the availability of material, and the ability to join the parts. It cannot be as creative in form as a casting. Add this to the generally better strength characteristics, and castings come out lighter weight and cheaper.
The nature of the casting process means that the cast steel does not exhibit directionality. These parts can be stressed in any direction. Fabricated parts use steel that has directionality, i.e. it is strong in one direction and not in another.
Contrary to common belief, Cast steel parts are ductile and tough, not brittle and hard, lending themselves to designs where longer life and improved performance are an advantage.
Fabrications are very relevant for small volume production, using readily available material to create the part. No tooling cost allows for low set up costs and short timescales to production. Castings require an investment upfront for the creation of a mould or tool. Sand casting tools are significantly cheaper than injection die cast tools, but all casting requires a tooling budget and timescale.
Fabrications allow you to make alterations to the design 'on the fly' evolving the iteratively. This can be positive if your start up budget is low.
However, fabrication design needs to be very well considered. Joining parts together can lead to inaccuracy and additional/expensive fettling to correct the compound dimensional or alignment problems. For accuracy, castings will give you more precise tolerances than fabrication.
In addition, combining multiple elements together generates stress points, requiring additional strength to be designed back in. Fabrication design needs to be sensitive to the limitations: welds can be hard to repair and are often are the cause of failure, whereas the strongest element in fabrications is the strength of a metal parts. Creating successful fabrications requires correctly recognized and allowed for in the final design.
Can you fabricate cast parts? Yes - again contrary to popular belief, cast parts are often better to weld than wrought, as the lack of directionality provides a ductile, not too hard, weld surface. You can also design the cast parts to move the 'weaker' weld line to an area of the part that is not exposed to high stress, therefore optimising the best of both processes. Assemblies can be fabricated using cast parts, reducing assembly time and complexity.
Fabrication may be cheaper and quicker setting up, but if your project is successful, fabrication will be more expensive and a lengthier procedure in the long run than a casting solution.