A Georgian town rebuilt after fire
Wincanton grew up on rising ground on the east bank of the River Cale, on the north-east edge of the Blackmore Vale. Fires in the eighteenth century destroyed a great part of the town, and much of the centre was rebuilt in the years that followed. That is why the High Street and Market Place have such a consistent Georgian look. The architect and builder Nathaniel Ireson lived and worked here from 1726 to 1769. He designed or remodelled many buildings in and around the town, and he ran a brick and tile works and pottery, quarrying building stone and clay on Grants Lane.
Listing descriptions for the High Street mention local stone rubble again and again, often rendered and painted at the front, with ashlar dressings. Plain clay tiles come up again and again in those listings, and several have mansard roofs, with a steep lower slope and a shallow upper slope that make room for an extra storey in the roof. One even has a double mansard hidden behind a parapet. Elsewhere you will find Welsh slate between coped gables, and on Tout Hill a former cottage with Bridgwater patent double angled clay tiles and sawtooth ridge tiles. In the post-war years the town expanded greatly, with large estates built to the south, east and west, typically roofed in concrete interlocking tiles.
Weather on the edge of the Vale
The prevailing wind is from the south-west, across the open farmland of the Blackmore Vale, so the town's south and west-facing slopes take the brunt of the weather. Mansard roofs need particular care in this weather. The steep lower slopes are almost vertical walls of tile, and the joint where they meet the shallow upper slope is a natural weak spot. Lead or tile flashings at that kerb, and around the dormers set into a mansard, take a lot of water and wear out over the decades. Parapets hide gutters that fill with leaves and moss, and low-pitched upper slopes drain slowly, so blocked outlets show up quickly as damp on the floors below.
Old clay tiles have their own habits. Handmade plain tiles hang on small nibs or pegs, and over a couple of centuries the pegs rot, the nibs snap and individual tiles slide out of line. A roof described in its listing as undulating may be perfectly sound, but it needs a roofer who will refix the loose tiles without trying to iron out its character.
Planning, listing and the conservation area
Wincanton's conservation area dates from 1988 and protects around 26 hectares of the town centre. It contains around 100 listed buildings, many of them on the High Street. The most important is The Dogs, a Grade I listed house of about 1650 that Ireson largely rebuilt in the 1740s, while seventeenth-century Balsam House is Grade II*.
With so many listed buildings in a small area, check before planning roof changes. For a listed home, swapping clay tiles for anything else, changing a mansard's shape, adding dormers or rooflights, or removing a stack will normally require listed building consent, which Somerset Council grants. Even unlisted houses inside the conservation area may need permission for some visible roof alterations. We can supply photos and a written description to support an application.
Roofing jobs we do in Wincanton
On the older streets, a lot of our work is on clay tile roofs: replacing slipped and broken tiles, re-bedding ridges, and renewing the lead or tile flashings on mansards and parapets as part of our pitched roof repair and re-tiling. Old timber cornices and boxed eaves can rot behind the gutters, and we replace or repair them through our fascia and soffit work.
The post-war estates have different needs. Concrete tile roofs from the 1960s and 1970s often have perished mortar on the ridges and verges, and flat-roofed garages and dormers are common on houses of that era. We deal with those through repairs to leaking flat roofs. Plenty of estate owners also want more from the space under the roof. On a loft project we handle the roofing side, such as rooflights, dormer roofs, insulation and boarding, through our loft makeover work, alongside your builder or architect where a full conversion is planned. If all you need is safe access for storage, we can fit a fold-down loft ladder.
How we handle your quote
Call 07933 861 087 or get in touch for a free quote. Visiting costs you nothing, as we have no call-out fee, and we inspect the roof properly. You get photos of anything we find and a written quote that explains the work. In the town centre, where scaffolding often has to stand on the pavement, we sort out the scaffold and skip arrangements with you in advance. At the end, the site is cleaned up and we remove all the old materials.
Wincanton neighbourhoods and nearby villages
We work across the town, from the High Street, Market Place, Mill Street and South Street to Tout Hill, Bayford and the post-war estates on the south, east and west sides. We also cover nearby Charlton Musgrove, Holbrook, Stoke Trister, Cucklington and Templecombe, and over towards Castle Cary.
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