A river town on the edge of the Levels
Langport grew on a small, steep hill just below the point where the River Yeo joins the Parrett, with the flat moors of the Somerset Levels spreading out on either side. Below the town the river is tidal. Its main street, Bow Street, runs along an old causeway, and many of the houses on it lean backwards because the land behind the causeway has settled over the centuries. If you live there, you will know that nothing in those buildings is quite square, and that includes the roofs.
Langport and Huish Episcopi run together as one town, though they are separate parishes. Their joint conservation area was designated in 1971. It covers about 46 hectares and holds 73 listed buildings, three of them Grade I, including All Saints Church. The Hanging Chapel, set on an archway over the road, and St Mary's church at Huish Episcopi, built of blue lias with golden Hamstone decoration, are among the best known.
Brick, lias and clay tiles
Alongside local lias stone, the old town has a good deal of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century brick, some of it colourwashed, with Hamstone dressings. The listed buildings on Bow Street show the range well: a red brick house in Flemish bond with a hipped plain clay tile roof, a colourwashed brick house with a plain clay-tiled mansard between stepped gables, and a remodelled Georgian house with a shallow Welsh slate roof between coped gables. Plain clay tiles and Welsh slate both appear in the listing records for the old streets.
Beyond the centre, the growth came in stages. Newtown, on the east side of Swallow Hill, was laid out in 1845, new houses went up along The Avenue around 1877, and the small council estate known as Garden City was built to the north of the town between 1918 and 1929. Later twentieth-century housing turned Langport into a dormitory town for Taunton and Yeovil, and homes of that era typically carry concrete interlocking tiles, with uPVC fascias and soffits and the odd flat-roofed garage or porch.
Damp air and settling walls
The low-lying land round Langport is sometimes flooded in winter, and the town sits right in that wet landscape. On the lower streets near the river, roofs can be slow to dry after rain, and moss and lichen grow freely on north-facing slopes and in shaded valleys between roofs. The prevailing wind is from the south-west, across open moor with little shelter.
The bigger issue on the old streets is movement. Where a building has settled or tilted, ridges dip, tiles open up at the verges and lead flashings pull away from chimneys and party walls. Mortar fillets crack where a roof meets a wall that has moved at a different rate. These are not always signs of an urgent structural problem, but they let water in, and on a mansard or a parapet roof that water can travel a long way before it shows indoors.
What we are called out for
A lot of our Langport work is general roof repairs on older houses: replacing slipped plain tiles or slates, rebedding ridges and making good verges. We renew lead flashings, gutters and valleys where they have split or lifted with movement, and we replace failed felt on back extensions and garages with our flat roofing systems. When a whole roof is finished, we take it back to the rafters and re-cover it, and our loft insulation work deals with the Building Regulations upgrade that is triggered once a large part of a roof is renewed.
Planning and listed buildings
Both Langport and Huish Episcopi come under Somerset Council for planning. On a street inside the conservation area, it pays to speak to the council's planners about a new roof covering, a rooflight on the front slope or taking down a chimney before anything is booked. If the building is listed, consent is normally required for roof alterations, and even repairs may have to use materials that match the originals. Our quote highlights anything we think could need consent, and our photographs and a written description of the work can support your application.
Free quotes and how we work
Langport enquiries can come by phone on 07933 861 087, by email to hello@somersetroofing.co.uk, or via the form on our contact us page. The visit is free of any call-out fee. On site we go over the roof, photograph the faults so they are clear to you, and then post or email a free quote in writing. After the work, the site is swept and the old tiles, felt and timber are removed.
Where we cover
We work across Langport and Huish Episcopi, including Bow Street, Cheapside, The Hill, North Street, Whatley, The Avenue, Newtown and Garden City, along with Westover on the far bank of the Parrett. Nearby, we also cover Wearne, Pibsbury, Combe, Muchelney, Pitney, Aller and Drayton, and we have a page for roofing in Somerton, five miles east.
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