Cladding sub-frames, feature screens, heritage railings, parapet capping, decorative columns and one-off architectural elements — designed and fabricated to your drawings in our West Yorkshire workshop. Coded welders. UK-wide installation.
Most architectural metalwork enquiries don't arrive with a neat label. They arrive as a CAD detail showing a sub-frame behind a brick-slip cladding system. A photograph of a rusted Victorian railing that needs replacing in kind. A sketch of an entrance marker that needs to read as a single sculpted element rather than a kit of parts. A specification for a parapet capping run that has to match a heritage profile already approved by planning. None of these are "gates" or "balustrades" — they're the bits of a building that an architect has drawn and a fabricator needs to build.
The problem with most competitor pages on bespoke architectural metalwork Leeds enquiries surface is that they tell you nothing. "We do feature metalwork. Get in touch for a quote." That's not a service page — it's a placeholder. If you're an architect, a designer, a developer or a main contractor reading this, you need to know two things before you pick up the phone: what we actually fabricate under this heading, and what falls outside it. The rest of the page answers both.
The reason this matters more for architectural metalwork than for any of our other service lines is that the work is, by definition, one-off. There is no catalogue. There is no "standard" size. Every piece is drawn for one building, manufactured once, and lives in the open where every weld and every bolt detail is on show. Fabrication quality stops being an industrial concern and starts being a visible one.
Bespoke steel — and, where the design calls for it, stainless, aluminium, or weathering steel — fabricated in our Leeds workshop to architects' or designers' drawings. Below is the working list of what falls inside this service. If your project sits between two lines, it probably still belongs here.
Steel carrier frames behind brick slip, terracotta, fibre cement, timber, and metal rainscreen cladding. Welded angle frames, brackets, hat rails, helping-hand systems, and bespoke load-transfer sub-structures designed to your facade contractor's specification. Drilled, slotted and shimmed to accommodate thermal movement and building tolerance. Galvanised or stainless to match the cladding warranty requirements.
Replacement of rusted Victorian or Edwardian railings to match the original profile — square bar, twisted bar, fleur-de-lis finials, ball-cap newels, scroll panels. Restoration of period entrance gates where the original is beyond saving but the design must be retained for a listed building or conservation area consent. We pattern-match from photographs, salvaged sections, or planning-approved drawings.
Laser-cut or fabricated steel screens for entrance walls, atrium dividers, brise-soleil, perforated facade panels, and decorative interior partitions. Geometric, organic, or bespoke pattern work — fabricated from sheet, plate or bar and finished to match the design intent. We work from vector artwork or hand-drawn patterns; nesting, ligature, and aperture detailing handled at CAD stage.
Steel door surrounds, entrance portals, signage frames, glazing supports for double-height entry glazing, canopy posts at building entrances, and bespoke sculptural entrance elements. Often the first thing a visitor sees and the piece architects care most about — finishes, joinery and tolerances are spec'd accordingly.
Steel parapet capping runs, bespoke drip flashings, edge protection, eaves trim and copings where standard rolled sections won't deliver the profile the architect has drawn. Fabricated, folded or rolled to suit; long runs welded with concealed joints; finished to integrate with the roof or facade build-up.
Decorative columns, feature staircase shrouds and casings, mezzanine balustrade architecture, internal screens and partitions, exposed beam dressings, and bespoke fittings for retail and hospitality fit-outs. Where the steel is meant to be seen, surface preparation, weld grinding and finish are part of the spec — not an afterthought.
Steel sculpture for public realm or private commission, bespoke planters, fire-pit fabrication, bespoke garden structures and the kind of one-off architectural detail that no catalogue covers. We've fabricated to drawings ranging from full CAD packages through to a single dimensioned sketch on the back of a notebook.
Standards: Welded by coded operatives certified to BS EN ISO 9606. Fabrication tested to BS 4872. City & Guilds 2222 qualified welders throughout. UK spelling and UK steel sources unless your specification calls for otherwise.
Where structural steel is involved — read this first. We specialise in secondary steelwork, architectural metalwork, and bespoke fabrication. For projects requiring primary structural elements — load-bearing columns, beams supporting floor or roof loads, structural cladding rails on a building's primary stability frame — we work alongside your structural engineer or architect. They sign off the structure; we manufacture and install the steel to their specification. We do not hold BS EN 1090, so we do not deliver primary structural steelwork independently. If your project mixes architectural and primary structural work, we'll be straight with you at the quoting stage about which elements we can take on and which need to come through a BS EN 1090 certified partner.
Send drawings at concept or RIBA Stage 3. We’ll flag fabrication issues before they become coordination headaches at Stage 4/5.
Free, no obligation. We measure, photograph existing context, and check substrate, fixings and access.
Itemised written quote inside three working days. Shop drawings produced from your design intent for sign-off before fabrication.
Built in our Leeds workshop by coded welders. Trial-fit checks for awkward geometry. Finish applied to specification — galvanise, powder coat, paint or weathering steel.
Fitted on site by our team. Coordinated with main contractor programme; sign-off on completion.
We fabricate to architect's drawings and produce our own shop drawings for sign-off. No guesswork, no surprises on site.
When the steel is on show, every weld matters. Operatives certified to BS EN ISO 9606; weld dressing and finish handled in-house.
Profile-matching for listed buildings; laser-cut feature panels for new-build facades. Same workshop, same coded welders.
We don’t hold BS EN 1090 and we’ll say so. For primary structural work we coordinate with your structural engineer rather than overreach.
Workshop in Leeds; installation across West Yorkshire as standard and UK-wide for the right architectural project. We've worked with main contractors and design teams on schemes from Leeds and Bradford through to Manchester, Cheshire, the North East and the Midlands.
Project outside West Yorkshire? Get in touch — we travel for the right architectural commission.
Architectural metalwork is the bespoke steel that lives on a building’s skin, in its entries, or as decorative or feature elements. Cladding sub-frames, heritage railing replacement, parapet capping, feature screens, decorative columns, entrance markers, exterior trims, sculptural one-offs. It’s steel where appearance matters, the design is one-off, and the fabrication is to drawings. What it isn’t: primary structural steel (load-bearing columns and beams on the main stability frame) — that needs a BS EN 1090 certified fabricator, which we are not. If your project mixes both, we’ll be straight about which elements we can take on.
No. We do not hold BS EN 1090 and do not deliver primary structural steelwork independently. For projects requiring primary structural elements we work alongside your structural engineer or architect — they sign off the structure, we manufacture and install the secondary steel and architectural elements to their specification. If you don’t yet have a structural engineer on board, we’re happy to refer you to ones we’ve worked with before. We’ll never claim a certification we don’t hold.
We work directly from architect’s drawings — CAD, PDF, paper, or a combination. We then produce our own fabrication (shop) drawings from your design intent. These are submitted back to the architect or engineer for approval before fabrication begins, so the final piece matches the design exactly. Early engagement helps: if we’re involved at RIBA Stage 3 or 4 we can flag connection details, tolerances and finish considerations before they become problems on site.
Both work. For straightforward commissions — heritage railing replacement, parapet capping runs, simple sub-frames — we’ll happily design and build from a brief, a photograph, or a site visit. For anything where the building’s overall design is being driven by an architect, we prefer to work to their drawings and contribute fabrication detailing rather than design the piece in isolation. We’re fabricators first; if the project needs lead designer input, we’ll say so and suggest you bring an architect in.
For straightforward architectural pieces — cladding sub-frames, parapet capping, replacement heritage railings — typical lead times are four to eight weeks from signed quote and approved shop drawings. For larger or more intricate work — feature screens with detailed laser-cut artwork, sculptural pieces, bespoke entrance elements — lead times stretch to eight to twelve weeks, subject to project complexity. We’ll give you a programme date at quoting stage and update it if anything changes.
Powder coating in any RAL colour for indoor or coastal-grade exterior use; hot-dip galvanising for long-life exterior steelwork; primed-and-painted finishes for matching to existing buildings; weathering steel (often called by the trade name Corten) for projects where the rusted patina is the aesthetic; polished or brushed stainless steel for architecturally exposed feature work; shot-blasted and lacquered for raw-steel appearance. The finish is specified at quoting stage because it affects the fabrication approach — particularly for galvanised work where weep holes and venting must be designed in.
Galvanised and powder-coated finishes typically require minimal maintenance for 15 to 25 years on exterior installations, dependent on environment. Painted finishes need recoating roughly every 8 to 12 years on exterior elements. Weathering steel is, by design, maintenance-free once the patina stabilises (usually after 18 to 36 months of weathering). Stainless steel requires periodic cleaning to maintain appearance but no protective coating. We’ll specify maintenance expectations against your chosen finish at quoting stage.
Yes. A significant share of our heritage work is on listed buildings or in conservation areas — replacement Victorian railings, period entrance gates, parapet detail matching, decorative ironwork in the wrought iron tradition. Planning consent and Listed Building Consent are your architect’s responsibility; our job is to fabricate to the approved drawings and match the profile, material and finish that consent requires. We work from photographs, salvaged sections, or planning-approved drawings to pattern-match accurately.
Mild steel and stainless steel are our day-to-day. We also fabricate in aluminium and weathering steel where the specification calls for it. For exotic or non-ferrous architectural metalwork (bronze, copper, brass) the design and finish work is typically outsourced to a specialist art-metalwork partner — we’d flag this at enquiry stage rather than attempt it in-house and underdeliver.
Cladding sub-frame fabrication behind a brick-slip rainscreen on a new-build commercial scheme — galvanised steel bracketry, welded angle frames, set out to the facade contractor’s grid.
Commercial facade work
Galvanised steel sub-frame, West Yorkshire
Heritage-style metal railings and ornamental ironwork in the wrought iron tradition for a period property — pattern-matched from photographs of the original.
Conservation area, Yorkshire
Pattern-matched profile, painted finish
Bespoke feature staircase shroud and decorative architectural detailing for a heritage building conversion — exposed steelwork, weld-dressed and finished for visible application.
Heritage conversion, West Yorkshire
Architecturally exposed steel
More of our commercial and architectural work on the Projects page.
CAD, PDF, paper sketch — we’ll come back with a written quote inside three working days. Site survey is free, no obligation. All quotes are subject to site survey. If it’s easier to talk it through first, call Lee.
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Browse our full commercial offering — guarding, fencing, mezzanines, structural.
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