A Somerset village street of stone cottages with clay pantile roofs

Roofers in High Littleton

High Littleton and Hallatrow lie along the A39, 9.1 road miles out of central Bath towards the south-west. The roofs here range from a house dated 1669 to cottages put up for the collieries, and we repair each in the materials and methods it was built with.

Get a free survey Call 01225 285181

Local roofs

Manor houses, mine workings and a main road

High Littleton is an old parish with an unusually well-recorded past. The Grange at Hallatrow is dated 1669, and High Littleton House was built by Thomas Hodges around 1710. Holy Trinity church, a Grade II listed building, contains monuments of the Mogg and Hodge families dating back to the 15th century. Those are the village's older landmarks, and they show a place with gentry houses as well as cottages.

Coal shaped the rest. The first deep mine in the parish was Mearns Coalworks, which began in 1783, and Greyfield Colliery closed in 1911. William Smith, the surveyor who formulated his ideas of rock stratification, worked extensively in the area during the 1790s as a mine surveyor. Hallatrow station on the Bristol and North Somerset Railway was the junction for the Camerton branch, which opened in 1882, and it closed to passengers in 1959.

The A39 Wells to Bath road runs through High Littleton and Hallatrow, and the A37 crosses it at White Cross. That matters for roofing in a practical way. Many houses here sit close to the road, so access, deliveries and scaffold have to be planned with some care, and we agree the arrangements with you at the survey.

The mix of buildings is the thing to keep in mind, because a method that suits one house can harm another. A 17th-century house, an 18th-century mansion house and a row of workers' cottages in the same parish need three different approaches. We look at each roof as it stands, tell you what we find, and put the proposed work and the price in writing.

Council: Bath and North East Somerset Council
From central Bath: 9.1 road miles, south-west
Older houses: The Grange at Hallatrow, 1669; High Littleton House, about 1710
Church: Holy Trinity, Grade II listed
Mining: Mearns Coalworks from 1783; Greyfield Colliery closed 1911

What we find

Old timbers, settled stacks and A39 gutters

Roofs on the 1669 and 1710 houses

Houses built at the end of the 1600s and the start of the 1700s were put up to last, and their roofs reward careful repair.

The Grange at Hallatrow carries the date 1669, and High Littleton House was built by Thomas Hodges around 1710. A roof from that era is a heavy timber structure, with rafters, purlins and plates cut and jointed by hand. The covering has almost certainly changed since the house was built, but the frame beneath often survives.

That frame is the first consideration in any repair. Old oak is strong, but it can be weakened by long-term damp, by beetle and by earlier alterations. We examine the timber from the loft, working along the roof with a lamp and a probe: the feet of the rafters, where they bear on the wall plate, the joints, any sag between supports and any signs of past leaks. A roof that looks sound from the lane may have a damaged wall plate hidden at the eaves, and the only way to find out is to look from the inside at the lowest point of the slope, where leaks tend to finish up. Where the timber has gone soft, a repair may mean piecing in new oak or fixing a sister rafter alongside the old one, and we describe which in writing.

A roof from this period may well have no underlay at all. Rain that gets past a slipped tile or slate lands on the battens (the narrow timbers the covering is hung from) and then drips to the loft floor. Some have sarking, boards fixed over the rafters beneath the covering, which gives a second line of defence. Where boards have been used, we check them for rot; where there are none, we advise on adding an underlay when the roof is re-covered.

The covering itself should match the house. Natural coverings are reused where they are sound, and replacements follow the original in size, colour and texture. Should you plan a different covering, weigh it first: one more than 15% heavier needs approval under the Building Regulations, and the timbers must be checked. Our slate roofing page describes the approach where the roof is slate.

Holy Trinity and the question of consent

A Grade II church under faculty rules and houses of real age mean consent is a live question in the parish.

Holy Trinity church holds Grade II status. Services are still held there, so as an Anglican church it falls under the ecclesiastical exemption: its roof is a matter for a diocesan faculty, and the advice below is about listed houses. The Grange and High Littleton House are old enough that you would expect them to be listed too, though we do not state the status of any particular house, because the Historic England list is the place to check. Where it appears, the listing takes in the roof as well.

B&NES publishes plain guidance on this. Its advice is to contact the local planning authority first, before a listed building is touched. Listed building consent and planning permission are two separate applications, and Historic England describes work done without authority as a criminal offence. For us that sets a clear order of events. First, survey the roof and describe the work. Second, take that description to the council. Third, proceed once the answer is clear.

The kinds of work that tend to need that conversation include swapping the covering, forming a new opening, rebuilding of a chimney stack and the alteration of a parapet or gutter line. Straight repairs in matching materials are the easier end of the range, though the decision is the council's, and we leave legal rulings to it. What we provide is a written specification: the materials, the fixings, the lead detail, the mortar, and photographs of each part of the roof.

A house that is not listed but stands close to the church might still sit in a protected setting, so ask the council. Outside listing, Building Regulations still apply to larger re-roofs. Re-covering a modest area stays under the Planning Portal's notification limits, whereas a bigger job does not. Our roof inspections service produces the report that either conversation will need. It records the roof as found, slope by slope, with photographs, so the council or a building control officer can see the same things we saw. If the roof has changed since the house was listed, that record also helps show what is original and what is not, which is useful to any conservation officer reading your application.

Myth

Listed building consent and planning permission are the same application.

Fact

B&NES says they differ, so a listed house can need one, the other or both.

Roadside houses on the A39 and at Hallatrow

Close to the carriageway, a roofing job is as much about logistics as about tiles.

The A39 runs through High Littleton and Hallatrow, and the A37 crosses it at White Cross. Houses along these roads sit near the pavement, sometimes with no front garden at all. That sets the terms for the work. Where a roof is two storeys above a footway, the scaffold, the skip and the delivery of materials all have to be arranged around passing traffic and pedestrians.

We plan the arrangements during the survey. We note where a lorry can stand, how materials reach the roof, whether the scaffold must be sheeted, and which parts of the house must stay accessible. We tell you what is involved before you commit, including how long the scaffold will stand and which windows or doors it will block, and we keep the site clear so that neighbours and passers-by are not troubled more than necessary. When the job ends, we clear the site and take away the waste.

The roof work itself starts at the edge. A roadside house usually has a long gutter run, with brackets that may be failing and a fascia board behind it. Fascia means the board that runs over the rafter ends and holds the gutter; soffit means the panel closing the underside of the overhang. If a gutter has leaked for years, the fascia can be soft and the rafter ends damp. Replacing the gutter without checking them is a false economy.

The same survey covers the chimneys, the ridge and the valleys. On a house that fronts the road, a loose tile is not just a repair, it is a hazard, which is why a leak or storm damage on such a house jumps our queue. If the damage is urgent, the first visit stops the water, and the longer repair follows once it is safe. Our roof repairs page walks through how we work, and it carries typical UK costs, as reported by MyBuilder in 2026, with the fixed quote coming after the survey.

Words you will hear

Fascia: The board along the eaves that closes the rafter ends and carries the gutter.
Soffit: The boarding under the eaves that closes the gap between wall and roof edge.
Sarking: Boards fixed over the rafters, under the covering, as a second line of defence.
Battens: Narrow timbers fixed across the rafters, from which tiles or slates hang.

Mining-era cottages and the repairs they need

Older cottages in a mining parish have often been mended many times and now need a plan, not another patch.

Mearns Coalworks began in 1783, the first deep mine in the parish, and Greyfield Colliery closed in 1911. A parish with deep mines needed homes for the men who worked them, and older cottages survive across High Littleton and Hallatrow. Many are still homes, and their roofs show the usual history of a small house in continuous use: patched where leaks showed, covered in whatever was to hand, and seldom looked at as a whole.

A cottage roof is a simple structure, which makes the survey quick and the answer clear. We look at the covering for slipped and broken pieces, at the ridge and verge, at the chimney, and at the loft for damp patches, staining and daylight. A roof with a handful of faults at the edges is a candidate for repair, since the sound field of covering can be left alone. A roof where the covering has failed across a slope, the underlay has perished and the battens are soft is a candidate for re-covering.

Cost matters, and it helps to have figures. MyBuilder's 2026 guide puts typical UK roof repairs at about £150 to £1,500, with £100 to £300 at the low end, where a minor leak or several slipped tiles sit. A moderate repair sits between £500 and £1,000, and major work £2,500 or more. Treat those as national guides, not our own figures: we fix a quote for your roof once we have surveyed it. Access, scaffold and the need to match materials move the figure more than the size of the fault does.

The best value is often a repair that deals with the cause. A tile replaced without addressing a failed batten will slip again. A flashing sealed over without relaying will leak again. Our slate roofing and roof repairs pages explain how we choose between patching and re-covering, and why we give our reasoning in writing.

Patch or re-cover

Repair when the faults sit at the edges and the timbers are sound; re-cover when underlay and battens have failed right across the slope.

Nearby

Roofers near High Littleton

Roofing services in High Littleton

Local questions

High Littleton and Hallatrow homeowners want to know

My High Littleton house dates from around 1710. Can its roof be repaired without a full strip?

Often, yes. We examine the timbers and wall plate from the loft, then decide whether the covering can be repaired in sections. If the frame is sound and the problems are at the edges and junctions, a repair keeps the original character. If the underlay and battens have failed across the slope, we strip that slope, reuse sound pieces and renew what holds them.

Is my Hallatrow house likely to be listed because of its age?

Age alone does not decide it. Search the Historic England list by address, or ask B&NES. For a listed house, work that affects its character needs listed building consent, which is not the same thing as planning permission.

My house fronts the A39 with no front garden. How is scaffolding arranged?

We plan it at the survey: where the scaffold stands, how it is sheeted, where materials arrive and where the skip sits. Houses close to the road need more care than those with a drive. We explain the arrangement in advance so you know what to expect.

Are the old mining cottages in the parish worth re-roofing, or should I patch?

It depends on the cause, not the age. If the fault is local and the battens are sound, a patch is good value. If the underlay and battens have failed across the slope, a patch only delays the work. The survey sorts the two, and we put the reasoning in writing.

Get your free survey

Get your free roof survey

Tell us what's happening and we'll call you back to arrange a visit. Prefer to talk? Call 01225 285181.

Photos of your own roof
A fixed price in writing
10-year workmanship guarantee