Charles Sandford

A unique capability in bespoke timber handrails.

Charles Sandford is an industry leader in the production of complex, custom-designed timber handrails. Using a combination of traditional hand skills and cutting-edge technology, we can manufacture any kind of handrail: geometric stairways, three-dimensional designs, traditional styles and heritage reproductions, contemporary styles, spiral stairways, goosenecks, returns, shepherd’s hooks and more.

We offer a high-end, bespoke service, partnering with architects and builders to provide everything from design consultation and measurement to manufacturing and installation. Our on-site laser-scanning capability enables us to fabricate components perfectly matched to the stairway substructure, while in our workshop, our large five-axis CNC machine helps us to bring unique handrail designs to reality, efficiently and with incredible precision.

And as you can see from examples like our work at the new Western Edge Biosciences Building designed by Hassell for the University of Melbourne, we can do it at large scales. (Photograph above by Earl Carter.)

We produced a diverse range of timber components for the refurbishment of historic Mosspennoch House into apartments, including handrails in two styles – one for contemporary-themed apartments and another that reproduces the classical nineteenth-century style of the original building.
Students, staff and visitors at the University of Melbourne's new Western Edge Biosciences Building will climb up its grand central stairway grasping a continuous handrail crafted from solid Victorian ash by the team at Charles Sandford. The handrail includes a solid timber upstand, to prevent objects from falling over the edge of the stairway, and is matched seamlessly to laminated Victorian ash cladding, also crafted by us.
A construction shot from a new residential project by Rob Mills Architects, showing our complex elliptical spiral timber handrail, partially installed. We'll add images and a full description of the project as soon as it's completed and photographed.
A small section of the solid timber handrails we fabricated for the refurbishment of Kinnears Ropeworks in Footscray, working with heritage architects Lovell Chen and builders Harris HMC.