Roofers in Midsomer Norton

Rain landing on a Midsomer Norton roof has a long way to go. It runs down the slope, into the gutter, along to a downpipe, and from there into a drain that may already be carrying the run-off from the street. On a hillside town the whole chain matters, because houses sit at different heights and a fault high on the slope delivers its water to the property beneath.

The first thing to check is the gutter. Plastic gutters sag between brackets and cast iron gutters rust at the joints, and either will overflow if the fall has shifted. If water lies in the gutter at one end, the brackets have dropped or the run has lost its fall. Re-hanging on new brackets is often a smaller job than replacing the whole length, and we say which route fits.

Next, the downpipes and the hoppers (the open heads that gather water from gutter or parapet and pass it into the pipe). Leaves, moss and roof grit collect there first. When the head is blocked, the water has nowhere to go and finds a way out through the wall instead. We clear what we find and check that the pipe discharges to a gully or soakaway that works.

Then the roof edge. Slipped tiles or a failed first course at the eaves send water behind the gutter, onto the fascia and down the wall, and fixing the gutter will not cure that. We look at both together. On a terrace, where one gutter serves several slopes, we also look at the shared junctions, because these decide whether the repair holds.

The town's flood tunnel is a reminder that water has caused trouble here before. It is also a reminder of a limit: the tunnel handles the river, and a roof is drained by its own gutters and drains. If your property sees standing water at the foot of a wall after rain, the first thing to rule out is the roof edge above it. Our roof repairs service covers the work, from re-fixing tiles at the eaves to renewing a failed gutter.

The oldest buildings in Midsomer Norton are not houses. The Church of St John the Baptist keeps its fifteenth-century tower, with seventeenth-century upper stages, above a body rebuilt in Gothic Revival style by John Pinch the younger in 1830 to 1831. The Catholic Church of the Holy Ghost began as a fifteenth-century tithe barn and was converted by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Both are Grade II* listed. The Town Hall, from 1860, and Island House, from the early eighteenth century, add further roofs of real age and size.

The roof of a building like these differs from a house in three ways. It is bigger, so the access is a project in itself. It combines several elements: slopes, valleys, gutters between roofs and often lead. And it belongs to a group, a congregation or a council, so decisions take longer and need to be written down.

We plan the survey around those facts. Before anyone climbs, we agree how the roof will be reached, from a tower, a cherry picker or a scaffold, and what has to be protected below. On the roof we record each slope, each junction and each run of lead, with photographs, so the committee can see exactly what is failing and where. The written report names the repair for each item and the order it should come in.

Because both churches are Grade II* listed, work on a comparable building starts with Bath and North East Somerset Council. The council asks owners to consult its planning team beforehand, and it keeps listed building consent apart from ordinary planning permission. We do not decide that for you, but we describe the work in enough detail for the conservation team to respond, and we match materials: natural slate stays slate, and lead is renewed as lead.

A converted barn raises a further point. A big roof that was once a farm building and now holds a heated space must cope with warmth rising into the roof, so ventilation and insulation need as much thought as the covering. Large lead roofs and their gutters are dealt with under lead roofing.

Figures: Midsomer Norton entry, Wikipedia, checked October 2026