Bespoke glass, made in Lancing. Fitted across Sussex.

Why buy glass from the people who make it

Most glass gets sold twice before anyone cuts it. A showroom takes the enquiry, a manufacturer somewhere else makes the panel, and a self-employed fitter turns up to install something they have never seen before. When it goes wrong, and glass jobs go wrong at the joins between those three, you are the one holding three phone numbers and no answer.

Brooklands has been a single workshop on Western Road in Lancing since 1997. The person who comes out to template your job works alongside the people who cut it, and our own installers fit it. There is one company, one quote and one number to ring. That is the whole proposition, and it is the reason most of our work still comes from people who have used us before or been told about us by someone who has.

What we make

Thirteen services, and they divide fairly cleanly. There is the structural end, balustrades, rooflights and walk-on glass, canopies and structural doors and partitions, where the Building Regulations decide the specification and the calculations matter more than the styling.

There is the interior end, splashbacks, shower screens and bespoke mirrors, where the engineering is simple and the difficulty is in templating a room that is never quite square, and in getting the colour right.

Then there is repair and restoration, secondary glazing for listed and period homes, restoration, shopfronts and emergency repairs. And there is straightforward cut to size work over the counter, for trade and public alike.

How a job runs

You get in touch with a rough description and ideally a photo. We come out and survey, free of charge, anywhere in our Sussex and Surrey area. Bespoke work is templated rather than measured, which means taking a physical pattern of the actual opening rather than trusting the numbers on a drawing. Walls lean, worktops are rarely level, and toughened glass cannot be trimmed once it has been through the furnace.

The glass is then cut, edged, toughened where required and finished in Lancing. Our own team installs it. You get a written, itemised quote before any of that starts, and there is more detail on how we work.

Getting the specification right

Most of what separates a good glass job from a bad one is decided before anything is cut. Anywhere a person could fall against the glass or through it needs safety glass, toughened to BS EN 12150 or laminated, and often both. Anything overhead or walked on has to be laminated so it stays in place if it breaks. And any pale colour, a white splashback, a soft grey, a mirror that needs to reflect true, wants low iron glass, because ordinary float carries a green tint that you will notice on a light colour and never see on a dark one.

We would rather explain that at survey than have you discover it after fitting. There are fuller explanations in our guide to glass types and our guide to balustrade building regulations, along with honest pricing guidance for splashbacks.

Working on the coast

One thing worth knowing if you are anywhere along the seafront between Littlehampton and Brighton. Salt air attacks stainless steel, and the 304 grade normally supplied for balustrade and canopy fittings will pit and stain within a couple of years on an exposed elevation. On genuinely exposed installs we specify 316 marine grade instead, and go up a thickness on the laminate where wind loading justifies it. It adds a little to the materials and it is the difference between a balustrade that still looks right in five years and one that does not.

Where to find us

The workshop and showroom are both at 2 Western Road, Lancing, BN15 8RR, open Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm and Saturday mornings. If you want to see colours and finishes in daylight before you commit, come in. If you would rather we came to you, ask for a quote or ring the workshop on 01903 754002.