Trefoil-arched Accoya
sash windows —
Queens Road, Harrogate.

The brief

Queens Road is one of Harrogate's most distinctive Victorian streets — grand stone-built villas set back behind mature trees, with big curved bays and elaborate window openings. The property on this job was under full renovation, with the builder gutting and refitting the house from top to bottom. Every window across the house needed replacing — well over thirty in total, all in Accoya, all with the same trefoil Gothic-arched head, all sprayed white and finished with aged brass ironmongery. And because we were working in stages with the builder, everything had to be planned around the schedule of the wider project.

Trefoil Gothic heads

The original windows carried a distinctive trefoil-arched top light — a three-lobed Gothic profile that reads as ornate from outside and elegant from inside. It's a detail that only works if the arch geometry is set out precisely. Each frame was machined to the sweep of the original openings, with the top lights carrying the trefoil profile through both the outer frame and the internal moulding. The bays needed particular care: five sashes swept in a curve, each with its own arched head, each meeting the next at exactly the right angle. When the trefoil detail lines up cleanly across a whole bay, the room reads instantly right.

Curved bays, matched throughout

The house has multiple curved sash bays — one at ground floor level looking out to the front garden, another upstairs opening to the treetops. All were replaced in matching Accoya, sprayed to the same white finish, with the same trefoil head profile. The internal panelling around each bay — window boards, shutter boxes, panelled dado details — was made and fitted alongside the sashes, so the joinery reads as one continuous piece of work rather than "windows plus decorator's boxing".

Timber & finish

Accoya throughout. Sprayed white in our in-house finishing bay to a microporous paint system that lets the timber breathe while sealing it against the Yorkshire weather. Accoya's 30-year above-ground guarantee and paint hold — roughly three times that of unmodified softwood — means these windows will still look freshly finished a decade from now, not two summers from now. Internal beading holds our standard 24mm double-glazed units, made with Planitherm One glass for a centre-pane U-value of 1.0 W/m²K.

Aged brass Mighton furniture

Aged brass sash furniture from Mighton across every window — sash lifts, fitch fasteners, travel stops and pulls, all in a matched antique-brass finish. The aged brass sits warmer against the crisp white paint than polished brass does, and it gives the windows the "period-correct" weight the property called for.

Phased installation with the builder

The house was mid-renovation, which meant we couldn't fit everything in one go. We planned the install in phases, with the builder calling us back as each area of the house came ready — new lintels in, brickwork made good, opening prepared and dry. Our fitters returned across several weeks, working around plasterers, electricians and decorators, until every window across the property was in. That kind of phased job needs a good rhythm with the site — and it's paid off since: the builder now brings us in on all of his timber window and door work.

"Over the moon with how it's come together — we now bring Bailey Hague in on all our timber window and door work."

The house is now watertight and finished, with every window on the property matching in profile, colour and hardware. It's the sort of job that shows what happens when a builder and a joinery run at the same standard — and it's why the same builder has been calling us back ever since.