A Mendip village of grey limestone cottages with clay tile roofs

Roofers in Bruton

Bruton lies 25.2 road miles south of Bath, on the River Brue, just south of Snakelake Hill and Coombe Hill. We re-cover and repair roofs across the town and its lanes, from old houses near the churches to those climbing the slopes, and the new covering is chosen to suit the old.

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Local roofs

Two Grade I churches, a Tudor tower turned dovecote and a river with a temper

Bruton wears its age openly. The Church of St Mary is a 14th-century building, and the church of the Holy Trinity at Wyke Champflower carries the date 1623; both are Grade I. Above the town stands the Dovecote, a 16th-century gabled Tudor tower that was converted around 1780. It is Grade II* and in the care of the National Trust. Bruton Abbey, made into a mansion by the Berkeleys after the Dissolution, was knocked down in the late 18th century, and a single wall is left in the Plox beside Bow Bridge.

Geography gives the town two kinds of roof job. The town stands on the Brue and the A359, just south of Snakelake Hill and Coombe Hill. Houses beside the water have to get rid of rain without adding to the damp at their feet. Houses on higher, open ground have to hold their covering on against the wind. The cause of failure differs, so the survey asks different questions.

The river has a record. In 1768 it wrecked a stone bridge. After the rain of 28 June 1917 a pub wall showed a watermark twenty feet above the usual level, and in 1984 a protective dam went up upstream. Nobody in Bruton needs telling that water has to be sent somewhere sensible, and a roof is where that starts.

Plenty of properties here sit close to something protected, and some are protected themselves. Where that applies, Somerset Council has a say over certain roof work, and we raise it at the survey rather than after the scaffold is up.

Council: Somerset Council
From central Bath: 25.2 road miles, south
Grade I churches: St Mary (14th century) and Holy Trinity, Wyke Champflower (1623)
The Dovecote: Grade II* listed, National Trust
River Brue: Dam built upstream in 1984

What we find

Flood-time outlets and lifted edges on the hill

Roofs in the shadow of the churches and the Dovecote

Standing near a Grade I building means the first job is finding out what the paperwork says about yours.

With two Grade I churches and a Grade II* Dovecote in or above the town, a good number of Bruton houses have a protected building for a neighbour, and some are on the list themselves. Which are and which are not is a matter of record. The Historic England entry names the building, and Somerset Council's planning team can say what the listing means for the roof. We would rather you asked them before we start than discovered the answer afterwards.

The line that matters falls between repair and alteration. Swapping a few failed tiles for matching ones, or refixing a ridge that has worked loose, keeps a roof as it was built. Putting on a different covering, cutting a new opening or taking down and rebuilding a stack changes the building, and for a listed house that calls for listed building consent, an application of its own and no substitute for planning permission. Skipping it is a criminal matter, and the small print is a poor place to find that out.

Our part is supplying detail. After the survey you get a written description of the covering we propose, the size and tone of any replacement, the lead for the flashings and the method of fixing. A conservation officer can answer a description like that in a sentence. A vague enquiry takes longer and draws a vaguer reply.

Matching decides how a repaired roof looks from the lane. Clay stays clay, natural slate stays slate, and a patch in a different colour shows for years. The pitched-roof side of our work, including re-covering older roofs in kind, is set out under pitched roofing.

Roof water beside a flood-prone river

A bridge lost in 1768 and a watermark from 1917 are reasons to take the downpipe seriously.

Rain leaves a roof by one route: down the slope, along the gutter and out through the pipe. In a town that has seen the Brue break a bridge and mark a wall, every stage of that route deserves a look. A roof does not cause a flood, but a badly drained one will soak the ground and walls beneath it, and that makes the next wet spell worse.

We begin at the eaves. Brackets work loose and a gutter sags, collects a pool and spills over its lowest point, soaking the wall below while the board behind it rots. Old cast iron opens at its joints. Plastic runs crack where they have been leaned on by a ladder. Downpipes clog with the moss and grit that washes off the roof. The foot of each pipe should lead into a drain or soakaway, and not simply onto the plinth.

Valleys carry more water than anything else on the roof, since they collect two slopes into one channel. When the lead lining a valley has split, or the channel has filled with debris, the flow spills sideways into the wall or loft. Long sheets of lead laid without allowing for movement are a common cause: they expand in the sun, contract at night and eventually tear at a fold.

Flat roofs on extensions and outbuildings near the river need the same scrutiny, and they have an early warning built in. Standing water after a dry spell tells us the falls have gone, and the edges and upstands are where bitumen felt, EPDM (a single-sheet synthetic rubber) and GRP (a resin-and-glass-fibre laminate) usually let go. The options for those surfaces are laid out under flat roofing.

Myth

Once the water has dropped, any roof damage will already have shown itself.

Fact

A blocked outlet or a split valley can keep feeding damp into a wall for months after the river has fallen, so the roof edge deserves a look as well as the ground.

Higher ground and exposed roofs

A house on the hillside is the first thing the wind reaches, and its weakest edge goes first.

Bruton lies on the River Brue just south of Snakelake Hill and Coombe Hill. A house on higher, open ground can have little upwind to slow the gusts. That is the situation where a fixing that was marginal in the shelter of the street begins to fail.

An exposed roof gives way at its edges. The ridge is the highest line and takes the worst of it. The verge, where the covering stops short of a gable wall, catches wind from the side and can lift the last row of tiles clean off. A hipped roof has both. All three were traditionally bedded in mortar, which crumbles, loses its grip and cracks open to let the rain behind it.

The code of practice BS 5534 for slating and tiling was revised in 2014, and since that revision a bed of mortar is not allowed to be the sole fixing for a ridge, hip or verge unit; a clip, screw or strap has to do the work. A dry-fix system supplies exactly that, and it is tested to BS 8612:2018. In place of a wet bed, a row of caps and an unbroken seal keep out driven rain. Where an old or listed roof is better served by traditional lime and a hidden fixing, we will recommend that instead and explain the reason.

The covering is half the story. Underneath, the battens carry the roof's weight, and the underlay behind them is the second line of defence when a tile moves. Felt that has perished makes a tile-only repair a stop-gap. Our notes on this kind of work sit under ridge and verge repairs.

Where exposed roofs fail first

Part	What the wind does	What we check
Ridge	Lifts bedded units along the crest	Mortar condition and mechanical fixing
Verge	Pulls the last row away from the gable	Bedding, cloaking and fixings
Hips	Loosens the angled run to the eaves	Each unit and the hip iron
Eaves	Lets water blow under the first course	Underlay lap and eaves support

Reading a roof that has been altered

A tower that became a dovecote shows how buildings here change purpose, and their roofs show it too.

The Dovecote was a Tudor tower before it was a dovecote, and the abbey wall in the Plox belongs to a house that no longer stands. Bruton has plenty of buildings that have been remade. Their roofs carry the same history: a frame altered to open up space, a pitch that no longer suits its covering, an extension roofed at a different date from the main house.

When we go up, we read those changes. A slope patched in three materials tells us where water has been coming in. A ridge that dips suggests the timbers below have moved. From inside the loft we look for stained rafters close to the chimney and for chinks of daylight between the roof boards, because both say more than the outer face can.

Stacks are usually the first part of an older house to give trouble. Flaunching is the sloped mortar crown that seats the pots and sheds the rain; when it cracks, water goes into the stack itself. The flashing is a lead apron dressed across the joint between stack and slope, and it lifts at the edges as the metal ages. Beneath the visible lead, soakers (the little folded pieces slipped between each course) can corrode unseen. The mortar for any repair depends on the stack: soft stone wants lime, hard brick can take something firmer.

If the roof has outlived patching, we say how a proper re-cover would run and what it would keep. If a repair will last, that is what we recommend. The full run of stack work, from pointing to a rebuild, is described under chimney repairs.

Patch or re-cover

Repair a roof whose faults are local and whose timbers are sound, and re-cover one that is failing on every slope.

Nearby

Roofers near Bruton

Roofing services in Bruton

Local questions

Asked beside the River Brue in Bruton

Does being near the River Brue change how my roof should drain?

It raises the stakes. A town that lost a stone bridge in 1768 and saw a watermark twenty feet up a pub wall in 1917 has little patience for roof water running where it should not. We check that gutters are clear and well supported, that joints are tight, and that each downpipe ends at a drain or soakaway instead of the base of the wall. A flat extension roof that ponds gets a look at its falls and edges first.

My house is close to the Dovecote or a church. Must I get consent before a repair?

That depends on whether the house is itself listed and on what the work alters. A like-for-like patch is one thing, and a new covering or rebuilt stack is another. Ask Somerset Council before work begins. We can hand you a written description of the materials and method we propose, so the planning team can answer a specific proposal.

Tiles keep coming off my hillside roof in gales. Where do you start?

At the exposed edges: ridge, hips and verges. If cracked mortar is all that holds them, we replace it with a mechanical fixing, usually dry-fix. After the 2014 revision of BS 5534, mortar alone is no longer the standard way to hold those units. Then we look at the battens and underlay beneath, because a repair on tired felt tends to fail again.

Is a roof close to the railway any different to work on?

Only in access. Bruton station is on the Reading to Taunton line, and a house near it may have a tight route for materials and scaffolding. We settle where the scaffold and skip can stand at the survey, plan the work around that, and leave the site cleared with the waste taken away.

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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.

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