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

Roofers in Malmesbury

Malmesbury is 22.8 road miles from Bath, lying north-east, under Wiltshire Council, on a hill almost ringed by two rivers. Stone tiles cover the abbey nave, newer housing stands on a former radar works, and any repair on the hill goes back in the material that particular roof was originally built in.

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Local roofs

A hilltop town with over 300 listed buildings

The old part of Malmesbury occupies a hilltop whose sides fall away steeply, in places like a cliff, with the upper Bristol Avon and the Tetbury Avon curling round almost the whole base. That position explains the town's shape and its weather. Roofs near the top of the hill have nothing between them and the wind, while those lower down sit closer to the damp of the river valleys.

The town has over 300 listed buildings, and the parish's six Grade I structures are all on the hill. In the south, the former court house is limestone rubble under a roof dating from the 15th century, and the 16th century almshouses nearby, now three cottages, are Grade II* listed. Few places of this size ask so many roof questions that start with the word consent.

Then there is the abbey. Its surviving nave is built of limestone ashlar and covered in stone tiles, and in November 2022 it was placed on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register because of the condition of its roofs. That is a large and public example of a problem that every stone-tiled roof in the town can share: the covering is heavy, old and hard to replace, and its failure begins in small places.

The town grew out beyond the hill to the north-west in the 19th and 20th centuries, and later development reached north as far as Filands, bounded by the B4014. Cowbridge House, south-east of the centre, was the EKCO radar factory before it became housing after Lucent Technologies left in 2004. Each of these areas needs a different roofer's eye, and we bring one to each.

Council: Wiltshire Council
From central Bath: 22.8 road miles, north-east
Listed buildings: Over 300, six of them Grade I
Abbey nave: Heritage at Risk Register since November 2022
Setting: Hilltop between the upper Bristol Avon and Tetbury Avon

What we find

Tilting stone tiles and tall hilltop frontages

Stone tiles: heavy, handsome and hard to replace

The abbey roof is a reminder of what happens when a stone covering is left too long.

When the abbey nave went onto the Heritage at Risk Register in 2022, the reason given was the state of its roofs. The nave is limestone ashlar, meaning squared and finely cut blocks, with a covering of stone tiles. It is a reminder that a stone roof can look settled for years and still be failing quietly underneath.

Stone tiles are laid in courses that get smaller towards the ridge, each one hung from a peg or nail driven through a hole at the top. Over time the peg rots or the nail corrodes, and the tile slides. Frost does the rest. Water gets into the bed of a layered stone, freezes, and splits the tile along its grain. A roofer who sees a few gaps in a slope should assume that the cause is the fixing, and that the tiles around the gap are close to going too.

Repairing a stone roof is a sorting job. We lift the courses, set the sound tiles aside by size, discard the split ones and rebuild from the eaves up, with the large tiles low and the small ones high. Where we need more stone, we source matching tiles in colour and thickness, reclaimed or new. A thin, regular tile in the wrong shade does more harm to the look of a stone roof than the original gap did.

Underneath, the timbers deserve attention. Stone is heavy, and the rafters and battens carry a great deal of weight for a very long time. An old, notched or twisted rafter will have an opinion on how much the roof can take. If a repair involves changing the covering, one 15 per cent heavier or more than the old one needs Building Regulations approval, and the change would need consent if the building is listed. We would rather keep a stone roof than replace it, and our approach to that choice is set out under pitched roofing.

Myth

A stone-tiled roof that has stood for centuries will keep standing without attention.

Fact

Pegs rot, frost splits the beds, and the weight of the stone tests the timbers, which is why even the abbey nave's roofs landed on a risk register.

Six Grade I buildings and what listing means for a roof

In a town with over 300 listings, the first call on most jobs is to the council, not the scaffolder.

If you own a house in Malmesbury's old centre, there is a good chance your neighbour's is listed, and a reasonable one that yours is. A listed building's roof is not a separate item. Slate, stone, lead, ridge, rafters and chimney are all part of what was listed, and changing them without permission is an offence.

Wiltshire Council is the authority for listed building consent here. Application guidance is on the Wiltshire Council website. The detail that helps most is precision: which tiles, which fixings, which mortar, which lead. A vague wish to repair the roof is hard to respond to, while a specific description of the repair is easy.

We do not decide consent, and we are not planning consultants. What we can do is survey, photograph and write down what the roof needs and how we would do it, using matching materials and traditional methods wherever the building calls for them. On a repair that changes nothing visible, a written specification like that gives the council something firm to read.

Not every building in the centre is listed, and some will have had their roofs altered long ago. We deal with the roof as it is, not as the listing text describes it, because the two do not always agree. Where a cottage has been re-covered in concrete tile at some point, replacing it with something more fitting may need discussion as well.

Work on a high-pitched or tall roof calls for proper access. Narrow lanes and steep slopes around the hill make scaffolding a planning job in itself, and we price it clearly in the written quote that follows the survey, along with how long it will stay up.

300+

Listed buildings in Malmesbury

Grade I structures in the parish, all within the hilltop town

2022

Year the abbey nave joined the Heritage at Risk Register

Figures: Malmesbury entry, Wikipedia, checked October 2026

Limestone rubble, old courthouse timbers and cottage roofs

The old court house stands on limestone rubble walls, and the roof starts where the wall ends.

The old court house in the south of the town is built of limestone rubble and carries a roof from the 15th century. Rubble walls are irregular by nature: the stones vary in size, the joints in width, and the top of the wall rarely lies on a straight line. A roof laid onto one has to adapt to those variations, and many do so with a good deal of improvised packing.

That is where leaks begin. The wall plate, a long timber bedded along the wall head to take the rafter feet, may bear on uneven stone. Where the plate has moved or rotted, the eaves drop and the lowest courses of covering open up. We check the eaves from above and, where the loft allows, from below, probing the ends of the rafters with a screwdriver to find soft wood.

The same walls make gutter fixing awkward. Brackets cannot be driven into just any stone, and a mortar joint that has softened will not hold a screw. On older cottages we may fix to the fascia timber or use long-leg brackets into sound masonry. Our lead roofing work covers the metal that sits at the edges of these roofs, from flashing to gutter lining, and in this part of town it often needs to be bent around corners that no square ever touched.

Almshouse-type terraces, like those that became three cottages in the south of the town, teach another lesson. A long shared roof with a single ridge can have a dozen small faults along its length, each of which looks unimportant from the ground. A walk-over inspection, with photographs, tells us far more than guesswork from a ladder. Our roof inspections are written up so you can see each fault and its location on the roof.

We keep the repair proportionate. If a handful of tiles need resetting and a flashing wants renewing, that is what we quote for.

Words you will hear

Ashlar: Squared, finely dressed stone laid in regular courses, as on the abbey nave.
Wall plate: A long timber set on the wall head to receive the rafter feet.
Rubble: Rough, irregular stone laid with thick joints, common in older cottage walls.
Delamination: The splitting of a stone tile into layers along its natural bed, usually after frost.

Filands, Cowbridge House and the newer roofs

Growth to the north and the old radar works have given Malmesbury roofs with a very different set of faults.

Malmesbury has not stood still. It spread to the north-west in the 19th and 20th centuries, and in the later 20th and early 21st centuries development carried it north as far as Filands, bounded by the B4014. To the south-east, Cowbridge House, the former EKCO radar factory, became housing after Lucent Technologies moved out in 2004. These are younger roofs, and they fail for younger reasons.

On a house from the later 20th century, the covering is laid on timber battens over a felt or membrane underlay, whatever the tile or slate on top. The first thing to go is typically the mortar under the ridge and hip tiles. BS 5534:2014 expects mechanical fixings for ridge and hip tiles, since bedding alone is not trusted to hold them. A dry-fix ridge, with clips and a ventilated section in place of wet mortar, is often the tidier answer, and BS 8612:2018 is its test specification.

The other fault is quieter. Bitumen felt that sagged between rafters early in its life can collect a puddle against the batten, which rots long before a stain reaches the ceiling. We raise some eaves tiles to look, because the check is cheap and shows whether the underlay is the true fault.

The converted factory buildings add a further category. Flat or low-pitched sections of a former works are likely to have membranes, upstands and rainwater outlets that need regular attention. The tiled areas come under pitched roofing, and the same visit checks any flat sections so nothing is left for the next winter.

As ever, we give you the fault, the photograph and the fix. Repairs are priced individually after the survey, and the site is cleared when we are done.

Nearby

Roofers near Malmesbury

Roofing services in Malmesbury

Local questions

Malmesbury questions on stone tiles and listing

My Malmesbury cottage has stone tiles with gaps. Can the missing ones be matched?

Usually. We look at the thickness, colour and size of what remains and source reclaimed or new stone to suit, then rebuild the courses so the diminishing pattern still reads correctly. Re-laying instead of patching turns on the pegs and the timbers, and we check both before advising.

Does the abbey's Heritage at Risk listing say anything about my own roof?

No, it applies to the abbey nave alone. It is, though, a useful illustration of how stone tile roofs deteriorate. Should your own house be listed, the council decides which work needs consent, and our written repair description can go with your enquiry.

We live in a house on the Filands development. Is a ridge repair a big job?

Normally not. Failed bedding under ridge tiles is one of the more common faults on newer roofs, and the repair is to re-fix the ridge with fixed clips or fit dry-fix. The work is short and the cost depends on ridge length and access, both of which we confirm in a fixed price after the survey.

Can you work around the narrow lanes near the old court house?

Yes, but access is part of the plan. Narrow lanes and steep ground affect where scaffolding can stand and how materials arrive. We look at that at the survey and include it in the written quote, rather than leaving it as a surprise on the day.

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