A Wiltshire market town street with stone and brick houses and clay tile roofs

Roofers in Bratton

Bratton lies under the northern slope of Salisbury Plain, 16.9 road miles from central Bath, with an Iron Age hill fort in its parish and a knot of listed buildings at its core. We mend roofs here to match what is already on them, from the old manor-scale houses and the chapel to the converted school and the village's ordinary homes.

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Local roofs

A village below the Plain, with a hill fort above it

Bratton sits at the foot of the northern slope of Salisbury Plain, and Bratton Castle, an Iron Age hill fort, lies inside the parish boundary. The village has a short list of notable listed buildings. The Court House, parts of which date from the 15th and 17th centuries, and Bratton House, which dates from 1715 and 1826, are both Grade II* listed. So is the Baptist chapel of 1734, enlarged in the 1780s, which Pevsner described as externally a gem. The Grade II* church of St James the Great went up again in the 15th century, and G. G. Scott rebuilt its chancel in 1854.

Beside those sit buildings that changed purpose. The former National School, known as The Oratory, was sold for residential use around 2009. And the central site of the R & J Reeves & Son agricultural machinery works, once the area's largest employer, has been the village play area since the firm closed in 1970.

For a roofer, that history means a village of roofs from very different centuries, sometimes within sight of each other. The work is a matter of reading each one on its own terms. Wiltshire Council decides planning applications and listed building consent for the village and also runs building control, and early in any job we tell you which of those you are likely to meet.

Council: Wiltshire Council
From central Bath: 16.9 road miles, south-east
Grade II* listed: The Court House, Bratton House, the Baptist chapel and St James the Great
Chapel: Built 1734, enlarged in the 1780s
Hill fort: Bratton Castle, an Iron Age fort within the parish

What we find

Old timbers, phase joins and upgraded conversions

The Court House, Bratton House and the oldest roofs

Buildings that date from the 15th to the 19th centuries carry their history in the timbers, and the roof has to be read from underneath.

The Court House has parts from the 15th and 17th centuries, and Bratton House combines work of 1715 and 1826. A roof on a building with that kind of history has seldom been built once and left. It is a stack of repairs, each made by a different hand with whatever timber was nearby: a new rafter bolted alongside an old one, a purlin (the long timber that props the rafters halfway up the slope) replaced in a different wood, a patch of boarding where a leak had rotted the original.

That is why we begin in the loft. Chinks of daylight, tide-marks on the rafters and the dark streaking left by a long slow drip each point to where water is entering. Beetle flight holes, and soft wood where the rafter feet sit on the wall plate (a timber running along the wall top to take their weight), show whether the frame behind the covering still has life in it. If it has, the job can be a repair and the roof keeps its old character. If it has not, you hear what must be replaced before one slate is lifted.

The covering on top is the easier part to match. Where slates or stone tiles are sound, they are lifted, sorted and relaid, with new ones of the same size, colour and thickness filling the gaps. Our pitched roofing page covers pitched roofs of every age and type. Old timber is an asset here, not a nuisance, so we replace only what has failed and leave old rafters where they can still bear their load.

For listed buildings of this rank, Wiltshire Council must give consent before work starts on any change that goes further than matching what is there. The conservation officers will ask what is coming off, what is going on and why, and we can put those answers on paper for you.

The Baptist chapel, the church and the seams between phases

A building enlarged in the 1780s or a chancel rebuilt in 1854 has a join in its roof, and joins are where water finds a way in.

The Baptist chapel was built in 1734 and enlarged in the 1780s. St James the Great is a 15th-century church with a chancel of 1854. Whatever the use, a building altered in stages has the same hidden feature: a seam where one roof stops and another begins. At that seam the two roofs are rarely at the same height, pitch or age, and the weathertight joint between them is made of lead and mortar, held by hand.

The same kinds of seam turn up on houses. A rear extension, a lean-to, a taller cross-wing: each has a junction with the older roof. Along the abutment the lead is dressed up the wall and its top edge is pushed into a slot cut in the stonework, called a chase, then sealed. Over time the lead fatigues, the groove opens and the sealant fails. Every winter that follows takes a little more of the wall with it. It is a fault that starts small and then spreads sideways, because water follows the joint along the wall.

Our check follows the seam from one end to the other. We test for lifting, look for cracked or lost pointing in the chase, and look under the covering at the abutment for soaked battens. The remedy is often a section of new lead let into the chase and pointed in lime, with fresh soakers (small lead pieces slipped under the edge of each course of slates) where the covering meets the wall.

For the metal side of this, see lead roofing; the principle holds on every house: lead is a long-lasting material when it is detailed to move, and a short-lived one when it is fixed rigidly across a joint that shifts.

Seam repair

If the lead is sound but the chase has opened, repoint and reseal; if the lead has split at the fold, replace the run.

The Oratory and other buildings that changed use

A former National School sold for housing around 2009 shows what happens to a roof when the building beneath it takes on a different life.

The Oratory was Bratton's National School, and it was sold for residential use around 2009. A school, a chapel or a workshop starts life with high ceilings, big open rooms and a roof built with no thought for warmth. Turning one into a home means adding floors, partitions and insulation beneath a roof whose builders never planned for any of it.

The roof is where the conversion shows its age. Insulation fitted tightly between rafters can stop air moving across the underside of the covering, and moisture that once escaped now condenses on cold timber. Rooflights, added to bring daylight into upper rooms, are another source of trouble when the surround was cut to fit and not made for the job. Our approach is to take the lining back at a trouble spot and see what is actually there, before deciding on a repair.

Building Regulations apply to this kind of work. Replace a big share of an existing roof and its insulation level may have to be brought up to current standards. For a new roof window, new roof windows must achieve 1.4 W/m²K, or alternatively a Band B window energy rating. An upstairs room needs a way out: in a house where the upper floor is no higher than 4.5 m above ground, that means an escape window or a protected stair. Details of fitting and consent for roof windows are set out on our skylights and roof windows page.

The same discipline applies when a former chapel or school roof needs plain repair. We check how the roof was altered during the conversion, look for sealed-in damp, and ask the person who did the work what was done, where possible.

Words you will hear

Purlin: A beam running the length of the roof, midway up a slope, that props the rafters.
Wall plate: The timber lying on top of a wall that receives the foot of each rafter.
Chase: A slot chiselled into stonework to receive the top edge of a lead flashing.
Abutment: The line where a sloping roof butts against a rising wall.

Everyday roofs, chimneys and the weather off the Plain

Most of the village is ordinary housing, and ordinary housing needs the same careful looking-over as the listed core.

Not everything in Bratton is old. The village has homes of every period around the listed core, and the same few faults come up on roofs of every age. A slope turned away from the sun dries slowly and gathers moss, which keeps water pressed against the covering. A gutter that has slipped on its brackets spills onto the wall. A chimney stack takes the worst of the wind, because it is the highest thing on the roof.

Chimneys deserve extra attention. The stack stands clear of the ridge, so rain strikes it from every side. Three parts give way in turn. The flaunching is the mortar crown on top that seats the pots and throws rain clear. The pointing is the mortar between brick or stone. The lead flashing seals the stack against the roof. A failing flashing is often the source of a stain on a bedroom ceiling that the owner assumes is a tile fault. Repointing in the right mortar, renewing the flashing and rebuilding the top few courses are the usual steps, and they are described on our chimney repairs page.

Wind off the Plain tests ridges and verges as well. Where they are bedded in mortar and the mortar has cracked, a gust can pick a tile off. We test each by hand, and when we re-fix them we add clips or screws, because modern practice does not trust bedding alone.

After a storm, take photographs of any damage from the ground, and keep them. Insurers commonly look for evidence of a specific event, and a dated record helps. Our first step is to make the roof safe, and a report on the damage follows.

Myth

A stain on a bedroom ceiling means the nearest slates are broken.

Fact

Water often gets in at a chimney flashing or gutter edge and runs along a timber before dripping, so the stain can sit well away from the fault.

Nearby

Roofers near Bratton

Roofing services in Bratton

Local questions

Bratton owners below the hill fort want to know

Our Bratton house is Grade II* listed and has a roof of mixed repairs. Where do you start?

In the loft. Rafters, wall plate and the underside of the covering get our attention before any slate is touched, so we learn which parts are original and which have been replaced already. The findings go into a written scope that you can show to the Wiltshire Council conservation officers.

There is damp where our extension meets the old part of the house. Is that a roof fault?

Often it is the seam. The lead along the junction can split or lift, and the chase it is tucked into can open. Water then runs along the wall and shows up elsewhere. We trace the seam in full before suggesting any repair, since a cure in the wrong place only moves the stain.

We bought a converted chapel in the village. What should be checked on the roof?

Start with the lining and insulation, which may be hiding damp, and the flashings round any rooflights. Ask for the building control records for the conversion. If work was signed off, that tells us how the roof was altered, and it spares us from opening up more than we need to.

Does a chimney stack in an exposed village like Bratton need repointing sooner than one in town?

Not by a fixed timetable, since every stack is different. An exposed stack tends to show its faults sooner, so we advise a look after any storm and a check at least once in a while. The signs are crumbling pointing, a cracked top or daylight showing at the flashing.

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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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