The Thyme Roof Project

Repairing the archive, replanting the roof for 25 Years since Tim’s Passing.

The Thyme Roof Project was completed between 2024 and 2025 as part of the Tim Stead Trust’s ongoing care of The Steading and its collection. It began with a practical need. The exterior archive room, which sits beneath the original thyme roof, had become vulnerable following periods of water ingress, placing both the building and a number of smaller works at risk.

These works include prototypes, maquettes, fragments and unfinished sculptures that are essential to understanding how Tim Stead worked. They hold traces of process and decision making that are not always visible in finished pieces. Keeping them on site, within the Steading, has always been important. This project allowed that to continue.

The work focused first on making the structure sound again. The archive room has now been repaired and improved, creating stable conditions for the care of the collection. Above it, the thyme roof has been replanted, returning a living surface to the building and reconnecting this part of the Steading to the landscape around it.

Within the room, a new interior has been made to support the archive. This includes a commissioned door, alongside a ladder and furniture by David Lightly, designed in response to the space and its use. These additions sit quietly within the building, allowing the room to function while remaining part of the Steading’s ongoing life.

Alongside the building work, the project included a programme of activity that invited people into the process. This included workshops, archive visits and the shared growing of thyme, with plants cultivated both on site and elsewhere before being brought back to the roof. In this way, the work extended beyond repair, becoming something that people could take part in directly.

The project was fully funded and delivered, with a total cost of around £180,000 covering the building works, archive improvements and public programme. Support came from a combination of trusts and public funders, alongside contributions from the Tim Stead Trust, reflecting a shared interest in securing the building and maintaining access to the collection.

What remains is a space that can be used again with confidence. The archive is held in better conditions, the roof is once more planted, and this part of the Steading continues to be both cared for and actively used.