At R H Irving Construction Ltd we’re proud of having built our reputation as one of the leading civil engineering firms in the North from the ground up.

Our expertise in the field of groundworks, roads and sewers, founded on over 35 years of experience, has made us the preferred contractor on a host of major building projects across the North of England and South of Scotland.

These have included large-scale housing developments such as Barnhill in Dumfries, Barras Close in Carlisle, and Honister Park in Workington, street improvements in Longtown and Whitehaven town centres, and the construction of the basement car park and ground floor level of Pears House, an exclusive apartment development in the Whitehaven harbour area.

But in recent years our continued success has been maintained by our ability to adapt and diversify into other sectors.  We have overseen eco-friendly conservation projects, from consolidation and repair to improvements and modernisation; we have also been responsible for large-scale building projects of our own.

These have included riverbank repair and preservation of bridge abutments at the Sheepmount Bridge in Carlisle with stabilisation works involving concrete piling, gabion baskets and landscaping, and the eco-friendly reinforcement of the bank of the River Petteril using soft engineered willow weaving techniques.

Saltom Pit in Whitehaven was the first under-sea coal mine in Britain, but its iconic pit head building had fallen into disrepair. Using a combination of stone supports techniques, reinforced concrete and gabion baskets we were able to protect the structure from further erosion by the sea and preserve this historical monument for future generations.

We were principal contractors at Houghton Hall Garden Centre, on the outskirts of Carlisle.  This striking building was a complete new-build, including all M&E and steelwork, groundworks, access roads, parking and basements. As a result of this successful project, we have also completed work on similar garden centres in North Yorkshire and Lancashire.

 And when Cumbria County Council announced plans to transfer the county’s archives from Carlisle Castle to a custom-build centre across the city, we were tasked with the new-build project. This included creating the reinforced concrete structure of the building housing a monitored central vault to contain valuable records dating back to the 14th century, plus access roads, parking and sympathetic landscaping.