A Somerset village street of stone cottages with clay pantile roofs

Roofers in Bishop Sutton

Bishop Sutton lies 13 road miles west of Bath, in the Chew Valley, and its roofs follow its history: a Victorian church, an old Methodist chapel, an early 18th century listed house and a flour mill turned into flats. Our work follows the building: repair where repair holds, and a matching re-cover where it does not.

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Local roofs

A Chew Valley village that mined coal and ground flour

Bishop Sutton is in the Chew Valley ward and the parish of Stowey-Sutton, under the same council as the city. It was never a showpiece village. For nearly a century its main industry was a coal mine, run by J. Lovell and Sons from 1835 to 1929 as part of the Somerset coalfield, and it also had a large flour mill, part of which has since been converted into flats. Working villages like this build for use, then adapt, and the roofs show it.

The older buildings are modest and varied. The Methodist chapel dates in part from the 1780s. The Church of the Holy Trinity in Wick Road was built in 1848 and is Grade II listed. The Elms, on Sutton Hill Road, is a detached house from the early 18th century, also Grade II listed. Folly Farm, with a 17th century farmhouse, sits on a curved ridge of land where the clay soils lie over Keuper Marl, and much of it is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

For a roofer, that spread of dates matters more than any single style. A 1780s chapel, a Victorian church and a converted mill do not share a method, a covering or a set of weak points. We start each survey by working out what the roof was built as and what has been done to it since, then we repair to that, not to a catalogue.

You will see us up on a ladder with a camera before we say anything about price. The written quote that follows describes the work on your own roof and nothing else.

Council: Bath and North East Somerset Council
From central Bath: 13 road miles, west
Listed church: Holy Trinity, Wick Road, 1848, Grade II
Listed house: The Elms, Sutton Hill Road, early 18th century, Grade II
Coal mine: J. Lovell and Sons, 1835 to 1929

What we find

Layered repairs and added roofs in Bishop Sutton

Holy Trinity and the grant-funded church roof

In 2006 the church received public money to replace its roof, which says something about how much a roof costs to get right.

The Church of the Holy Trinity in Wick Road dates from 1848 and is Grade II listed. In 2006 it received a grant of £64,000 from English Heritage to replace its roof. We mention the figure only because it shows the scale of the job on a building of this kind. A church roof is tall, long and awkward to reach, and the cost of getting scaffold and a safe working platform up often rivals the cost of the covering itself.

Few people in Bishop Sutton will ever need a church roof done, but the lessons carry over to any building with height and a listing. A pitched roof of this sort is judged from the ground, so what matters is that the new covering reads like the old one: the same colour, the same size of unit, the same laying pattern. A replacement that is a shade too grey or too regular looks wrong from the road for as long as it is up.

The working parts are the same as on a house. There is a ridge, a pair of verges, valleys where roofs meet, and flashings where the roof touches a wall or tower. The flashing is the strip of lead dressed over that junction to keep rain out. Where a tower or porch meets the main slope, the lead is the first thing to split and the last thing anyone inspects from below.

If you look after a hall, chapel or other community building in the village, a written survey with pictures of the slopes gives your committee something concrete to take to funders and to the council. For listed buildings we explain what consent from B&NES is likely to cover before any quote is agreed. Our roof replacement page sets out how a full re-cover is planned, from strip-out to final ridge.

1848

Year the Church of the Holy Trinity was built

2006

Year of the English Heritage roof grant

£64,000

Size of that grant, for the roof replacement

Figures: Bishop Sutton entry, Wikipedia, checked October 2026

The Elms and the early 18th century house

A listed house from the early 1700s asks for a different kind of care from anything built since.

The Elms, on Sutton Hill Road, is a detached house from the early 18th century and has Grade II listed status. Houses of that period were built with timber that was cut and shaped by hand, and the roof structure often shows it: rafters of uneven section, collars notched in by eye, and a covering that has been replaced at least once.

Listing changes the order in which things happen. A listing takes in the building as a whole, so the roof is bound up in it. A new covering, an altered chimney or an added roof window calls for listed building consent, which B&NES grants separately from planning permission, and it has to be in place before anyone starts. We cannot give a ruling on your particular house. Our part is to put the job in everyday words, so the conservation team is answering a specific question.

Work that keeps the slate, tile or stone and the lead already on the roof is the simplest to justify, since it alters nothing the council is protecting. That is the approach we take wherever repair works. A section of ridge, a handful of slipped slates and a reflashed chimney can keep a good roof going for a long time, and none of it spends money on a covering that is still sound.

When a roof does need re-covering, the materials need to follow the house. If it was slate, the replacement is slate of a matching size and colour. If there is a cement fillet where lime should be, we point it out and put it right. The wider approach to older pitched roofs is on our pitched roofing page.

The mill flats and the roofs behind the walls

Part of the old flour mill is now flats, and a converted industrial roof is a shared one.

Bishop Sutton had a large flour mill, and part of it was converted into flats. A building like that has a roof built for a different job. Mills needed height, long clear spans and a structure strong enough to carry machinery and stored grain, so a converted mill roof often sits on timbers designed for a working building and not for a home.

The first practical issue in a conversion is who owns the roof. In a block of flats it is usually shared, which means any repair is a decision for the freeholder or the managing agent, and a fault above one flat can show up as a stain in another. We deal with that by writing the survey up so it can be passed round: a clear description of each fault, a photograph, and a fixed price for the work.

The second issue is the gutters. A large building with a long roof sheds a lot of water, and where the slope ends in a box gutter (a lead or membrane-lined channel set between roof and wall rather than hung on the outside) or behind a parapet (the wall that continues up past the roof edge), a blocked outlet can send water back under the covering. Leaves, moss and old nests are the usual cause, and clearing them is routine maintenance that is easy to forget.

The third is the flat or low-pitched sections that conversions often add. A modern membrane on a small flat roof is a straightforward job, and our flat roofing page explains the choices between felt, EPDM, GRP and lead. A pitched slope next to it, with its own flashing, is a separate job and we treat it as one.

Words you will hear

Box gutter: A lined channel set between two roof slopes or between a slope and a wall.
Parapet: The upstand of masonry that continues a wall up past the edge of the roof.
EPDM: A synthetic rubber sheet used as a single-piece flat roof membrane.
GRP: Glass-reinforced plastic, a resin and fibre coating laid in place on flat roofs.

Chapel, farmhouse and the older small buildings

The chapel from the 1780s and the farms on the clay ridge are the kind of buildings where small faults grow quietly.

The village Methodist chapel dates in part from the 1780s, which makes parts of it more than two centuries old. Chapels and farmhouses of that age tend to have simple roofs and simple faults, but the faults are not always visible. A leak may show only as damp on an internal wall, or a patch of plaster that never quite dries.

The usual causes are modest. A cracked ridge tile lets rain in along the apex. A verge, where the slope finishes against the end wall of the house, loses its bedding and lets the wind lift the end tiles. A stone or brick stack develops a crack in its flaunching, the mortar cap that holds the pots in place. Each repair is small, and each is cheaper done when it is noticed than when the stain has spread to the ceiling.

Folly Farm, with its 17th century farmhouse on a curved ridge, is a reminder that some farms around the village are old buildings in their own right. Farmhouse roofs of that age frequently carry additions, lean-tos and outbuildings, each with its own line of flashing. The soils at Folly Farm are clay over Keuper Marl, and on clay ground old walls can move slightly with the seasons, which stresses any rigid joint. We make allowance for that by using flexible lead flashings in preference to hard mortar fillets wherever the wall and roof meet.

Chimney repairs, flashings and ridge work are among the most common jobs on buildings like these, and our chimney repairs page explains the usual stages. Where a roof is nearing the end of its life, we tell you directly and show you the evidence.

Repair or re-cover

If the timbers are sound and the faults are local, repair; if the fixings are failing across every slope, re-cover and reuse what is good.

Nearby

Roofers near Bishop Sutton

Roofing services in Bishop Sutton

Local questions

Mill flat, chapel and church questions in Bishop Sutton

My cottage in Bishop Sutton has had several patch repairs over the years. How do you decide whether it needs more than a patch?

We read the repairs as a history. Old patches clustered round one chimney or one valley point to a single fault that was never cured, and that is a repair. Patches spread across several slopes, with slates or tiles slipping where nails have corroded, point to the roof as a whole reaching the end of its fixings. We go into the loft, photograph both sides of the covering and show you which case you have before you decide anything.

Does a roof on a listed house like The Elms need consent for every repair?

Not always, though it is worth asking B&NES before you book anyone. Refixing the slates you already have is one thing; swapping the material, rebuilding a stack or cutting in a roof window is another. Work done without agreement on a listed house can lead to enforcement. We write down exactly what we propose to touch, so your enquiry to the council is not a guess.

Who deals with a leaking roof on one of the converted mill flats?

In most converted blocks the roof belongs to the whole building, so the first call is to your freeholder or managing agent. We can survey, photograph the fault and give a fixed written price for the agent to approve and share. If the leak is active we make the roof safe first, then plan the lasting repair once the owners have agreed the scope.

Our village hall roof is old and we would need funding. Can you help with the evidence?

Yes. A funder or the council will want to see what is wrong and what it will cost, so we provide a written survey with photographs of the roof, a description of each fault and a fixed figure for the repair or the re-cover. The Holy Trinity grant of 2006 shows that roof work on community buildings can attract funding, and a clear document makes any application easier to assess.

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