Doulting stone, clay tiles and a steep-sided valley
Shepton Mallet grew up in the narrow valley of the River Sheppey, at the foot of the Mendip Hills. The centre sits at about 115 metres above sea level and the edges of the town are roughly 45 metres higher, so plenty of roofs here are looked down on from the next street up. Many of the older buildings are Doulting stone, an oolitic limestone quarried a mile and a half east of the town at Doulting, the same source that supplied Wells Cathedral. Listed buildings on Town Lane, Town Street, Paul Street and the Market Place show the usual coverings in the old town: pantiles, double Roman tiles and plain tiles, with brick stacks.
Along the river, Bowlish kept the large houses of the clothiers who ran the cloth trade, and Darshill was once the site of several mills. Charlton has the old brewery site and the 27-arch railway viaduct. Suburban estates were then added all round the town during the twentieth century, among them Hillmead, built as a council estate in the 1960s, and more recently the Tadley Acres urban extension to the south with around 600 homes. The post-war houses typically carry concrete interlocking tiles, with flat-roofed garages and extensions alongside.
What Mendip weather does to roofs here
Shepton sits on the southern flank of the Mendips, and the hills are higher and wetter than the lowland around them. Streets at the top edge of town take the wind full on, while roofs down in the valley, especially north-facing slopes and those overhung by trees, stay damp for longer and grow moss quickly. Over the years that shows up in three ways. Mortar fillets where a roof meets a chimney or a neighbouring wall crack and let water track down inside. Older pantile roofs, many laid with no underlay at all, let in wind-blown rain and fine snow. And frost works on the soft lime mortar of stone stacks until the pointing falls out and the pots work loose.
Conservation area and listed buildings in Shepton Mallet
The town's conservation area takes in the centre along with Bowlish, Darshill and Charlton. Shepton has more than 200 listed buildings. They range from the Grade I parish church of St Peter and St Paul, known for its carved fifteenth-century oak wagon roof, to the Grade II* market cross, the old prison of 1610 and the Anglo-Bavarian Brewery, the first in England to brew lager. If your home is listed, changing the roof covering, adding a rooflight or taking down a stack will normally require listed building consent, granted by Somerset Council. Within the conservation area, speak to the council's planners first if you want different roof materials, rooflights or solar panels on a slope that faces the street. We are happy to supply photographs and a short written specification to support an application, but the decision is the council's.
The jobs that come up most in Shepton Mallet
On the older streets, the problem is nearly always water getting in at a weak point. On stone cottages that usually means fixing slipped, cracked and missing tiles, re-bedding verges and renewing failed mortar fillets. Tall stacks are another regular job: we reset loose pots, repoint in lime where the stone needs it and renew the flashings as part of chimney stack repairs. Where an old roof has valleys or a stack abutment, worn or split lead is often the real culprit, so replacing tired leadwork is a common fix.
On the 1960s and 1970s housing, the roof itself is often sound but the roofline has had its day. Rotten timber fascias, sagging gutters and soffits that let birds in are dealt with through new fascias and soffits. When a roof is beyond patching, we quote for a complete replacement roof. Once a re-roof takes in a large part of the roof area, Building Regulations normally apply, insulation upgrades included, and we build that into the price.
How a Shepton Mallet roof job runs
Ring 07933 861 087 or ask for a free roof quote online. Coming out to see the roof costs nothing; there is no call-out fee. We go up, take photos of what we find and show you them, so you can see the slipped tile or the cracked flashing with your own eyes. Our written quote follows, itemising each part of the job. In the tighter streets of the old town we agree scaffold and skip positions with you before work starts, and once the roof is finished we sweep up and load every bit of waste onto the van to take away.
Areas of Shepton Mallet we cover
We cover the whole town: the centre around the Market Place and High Street, Bowlish, Darshill and West Shepton, Charlton and Kilver Street, Hillmead, and the newer streets of Tadley Acres on the south side. We also work in the villages around it, including Doulting, Croscombe, Evercreech, Pilton, Downside and Cannard's Grave, and five miles west in Wells.
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