A Mendip village of grey limestone cottages with clay tile roofs

Roofers in Oakhill

Oakhill stretches along its road, 15.2 road miles from Bath and to the south-west, a village that grew with its brewery. Its landmarks include an 1861 church and an 1872 chapel now turned into homes, alongside small businesses and the clustered houses of Little London.

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Local roofs

A long, thin village made by beer

Oakhill is an elongated village, stretched out along its length, with the High Street once marking a parish boundary. At its western end sits a cluster of houses known as Little London. The village lies in the parish of Ashwick, and it owes much of its growth to brewing: Oakhill Brewery was founded in 1761 and became known for Oakhill Invalid Stout. In 1904 a 2ft 6in gauge railway was laid to carry beer barrels from the village to the Somerset and Dorset Railway at Binegar.

Its growth brought new buildings. The parish church of All Saints was built in 1861 to a design by J. L. Pearson, for a village that had grown with its brewing industry. The Independent Chapel of 1872, nicknamed locally the Little Cathedral, has been converted into two dwellings, the Bell Tower and the Round House.

That mix of dates is useful to a roofer. A roof put up in the 1860s or 1870s is now about a century and a half old, and it has had every winter since to find its weak points. A converted chapel carries a roof designed for a different use, now sitting over two homes. A village that grew around an industry keeps a layer of working buildings alongside the houses. Each kind of roof needs a different question asked of it.

Our survey asks it on the roof itself. You get photographs from your own roof, the cause of any fault and a fixed price in writing, and an older roof is repaired in kind rather than patched in whatever is cheapest.

Council: Somerset Council
From central Bath: 15.2 road miles, south-west
Parish church: All Saints, built in 1861 to a design by J. L. Pearson
Converted chapel: The 1872 Little Cathedral, now two dwellings
Parish: Ashwick

What we find

Victorian fixings and the odd shapes of conversions

The 1860s roofs of a brewing village

All Saints church dates from 1861, and houses of the same years now have roofs that are well over a century old.

The parish church of All Saints went up in 1861, designed by J. L. Pearson for a village whose population had grown with the brewery. Houses built around that date have roofs now past their hundred-and-fiftieth winter. That does not make them failing roofs. It makes them roofs whose weak points we can predict, and prediction saves a good deal of scaffold time.

The covering is seldom the first thing to go. Nails are. Iron fixings rust through where water has sat in the holes over the years, and the covering then hangs on its own weight until a gale pulls it clear. The battens, the thin timber laths that carry the covering, have the same problem from the other side: a batten that has been damp for years loses its grip on the nail. Rafter ends at the eaves, where gutters have leaked, are the third place we look, since rot starts there and stays hidden behind the fascia. A probe with a screwdriver tells us more than a glance, and we photograph the result.

Underlay is the next question. Many roofs of this age were laid with none, which means any rain that gets past the covering lands directly in the loft. Adding a modern membrane while the roof is stripped is among the most useful single upgrades available, and it can be done while keeping the original covering, which is relaid on new battens.

When the same defects appear across every slope, patching becomes a poor bet and a full re-cover pays back. When they are limited to one slope or one corner, repair is the better course, and the survey says which applies. Our page on pitched roofing explains the options. The price follows the survey, and it is fixed.

The Little Cathedral, the Bell Tower and the Round House

A chapel divided into two homes puts one roof over two owners, and its shape adds complications of its own.

The Independent Chapel of 1872 is known locally as the Little Cathedral. It has been converted into two dwellings, the Bell Tower and the Round House. It was built to an ambitious design, and its Bell Tower went up before the rest of the building. A roofline of that kind is more than a simple pair of slopes: a tower means hips, tapered courses and junctions where different shapes meet, and each of those is somewhere water can find a way in if the detail is rushed.

Where two roof planes turn an outward corner, the sloping line between them is a hip, and a curved or many-sided part of a building can have several in a row. Every course must be trimmed to meet them, so the work calls for tapered slates or tiles, capping along each line and accurate setting out to keep the courses level. A valley, the inward angle between two planes, does the reverse and collects water from both sides. Where a tower rises through a slope, a flashing runs round its base, and that run of lead is long and full of corners.

Conversion adds its own layer. A chapel roof was designed for a single volume, and now it covers two homes, each with its own loft or upper rooms. Insulation, ventilation and the way rainwater is shared all had to be adapted. The boundary line between the two dwellings is where problems tend to cluster, because that is where two sets of repairs meet and neither owner can see what the other has done.

Surveying the whole roof, rather than one half, is the only sound approach. Every junction gets photographed, and both owners receive a written scope they can read side by side, with each part of the work priced so it can be agreed between them.

Words you will hear

Hip: An outward sloping corner where two roof planes meet.
Valley: An inward angle between two planes that gathers rain from both.
Soaker: A folded lead tab tucked beneath the covering at a junction.
Tapered courses: Rows of tiles or slates cut narrower toward a point so they fit a curved or angled edge.

A brewery past and the roofs of working buildings

Oakhill Brewery dates from 1761, and a village shaped by an industry carries commercial roofs among its homes.

Oakhill Brewery was founded in 1761 and made Oakhill Invalid Stout. A railway built in 1904 carried barrels to Binegar. Industry on that scale needed workshops, stores and yards, and a village that grew around one tends to keep a mix of homes and working premises. If you run a business from a barn conversion, a unit, a workshop or a pub in Oakhill, your roof is a commercial roof, whatever the building looked like to begin with.

Many commercial and outbuilding roofs are flat or shallow, and the covering is a membrane rather than tiles. Bitumen felt is the oldest system and is laid in layers. EPDM is a synthetic rubber sheet, normally rolled out in one piece. GRP, glass-reinforced plastic, is brushed on wet over a deck to set as a single skin, which makes the finish depend on the weather that day. Lead is the premium option, used where a roof is visible or needs to last. Whichever is chosen, the edge details and the way water leaves the roof matter as much as the sheet itself.

The decision is rarely only about the membrane. A flat roof is a system: the deck, the insulation, the falls that carry water to the outlets, the upstands round the edges and the trims. A cheap membrane over a wet deck fails early, and a warm-deck design (insulation above the deck, not below) changes what the Building Regulations ask of the work. The table below gives national ranges per square metre from MyBuilder's 2026 flat roof guide. A roof on business premises is priced on survey, since the system, access and edge details vary too much for a rule of thumb.

How a business roof is surveyed and phased around a working site is explained under commercial roofing.

What flat roof coverings cost per square metre nationally (MyBuilder guide, 2026)

Membrane	Guide range, per m²
Lead sheet	£150 to £200 and above
GRP, fibreglass	£95 to £150
EPDM, rubber	£90 to £130
Felt, bitumen-based	£70 to £100

Little London, shared gutters and getting to the roof

In a long, thin village with a tight cluster at one end, gutters and access are often the real puzzle.

Oakhill runs along its road for some distance, and at the western end the houses of Little London sit close together. Close-packed houses share things: a party wall, a boundary gutter, a run of fascia that straddles two properties. A fault in a shared part belongs to nobody in particular, and that is usually why it has not been mended.

The gutter is where we begin. Water that overflows a gutter does not drip tidily to the ground. It runs behind it, into the fascia and the wall, and on a stone or brick house it can leave a damp patch inside that looks like a roof fault. We check each run's fall, its joints and its brackets, and we look at whether the downpipe discharges to a drain or to ground by the wall. Old cast iron, plastic and aluminium each fail differently, and the replacement is chosen to suit the house. The choices of material are weighed up in the guttering and fascia section of the site.

Access shapes the job as much as the roof does. In a cluster like Little London a scaffold may need to cross a neighbour's boundary, and a skip may have nowhere to stand. We sort that out at the survey, with the neighbours if need be, so the work does not stall on the day. A single scaffold can serve two adjoining roofs, which is a sensible way to share its cost when both owners need work done.

Where houses stand further apart, access is simpler, but ladders and long runs of gutter become a larger share of the job. In either case, the aim is the same: a roof that sheds its water properly, with the faults fixed at their cause rather than hidden behind a patch.

Myth

A gutter that overflows has to be replaced.

Fact

A blocked outlet, a dropped fall or a loose bracket often causes overflow, so cleaning and refixing may be all that is needed; replacement is for runs that have cracked or corroded.

Nearby

Roofers near Oakhill

Roofing services in Oakhill

Local questions

Questions from the brewing village and Little London

Why would a roof from the 1860s in Oakhill look sound but still leak?

Because the covering can outlast what holds it. Nails rust, battens soften where they have been damp and the felt, if there ever was any, has often perished. The roof then looks whole from the lane while rain finds its way past the fixings at the eaves. Those parts are checked up on the roof, and the verdict is whether the existing covering can be lifted and relaid.

How is a repair priced when one roof covers two converted homes, as at the old Independent Chapel?

We survey the whole roof and write one scope, with the work for each home itemised so the owners can agree who pays for what between themselves. That split is theirs to settle, and we can't advise on it. What we provide is a clear account of the faults and junctions, with a separate fixed price for each part.

Which flat roof covering suits a small workshop or farm building near Oakhill?

It depends on the deck, the falls and how the roof is used. Bitumen felt is the lowest-cost option, EPDM is laid in large sheets with few joints, GRP gives a single skin and lead lasts longest and costs most. The condition of the deck and the insulation matters as much as the membrane, so we assess both before recommending anything.

Oakhill is in Ashwick parish. Does that change which council deals with my re-roof?

No. Planning and building control for an Oakhill address sit with Somerset Council, not the parish. The parish council may be asked for its view on an application, but the decision belongs to Somerset Council. If your roof work is notifiable, we send the building control notice, to Somerset or to a registered approver, and explain what they will need from us.

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