Roofers covering
Oxfordshire
for stone, clay and lead

Limestone stone-slate roofs on cottages and farmhouses towards the Cotswold fringe and around Abingdon were often fixed with iron nails or timber pegs that corrode or rot long before the stone itself fails. As fixings go, individual slates start to slip, usually beginning at the eaves where the smallest stones sit.

Because stone slate has to be sourced and sorted by size and thickness, a rushed repair using the wrong stone or the wrong fixing method stands out immediately and often fails again within a season. We re-fix using appropriate methods for the roof's age and re-sort salvaged stone by hand where it can be reused.

Oxford has an unusually high concentration of listed buildings and conservation-area terraces packed into a compact city, and that shapes almost every repair decision, natural slate rather than a modern substitute, clay rather than concrete, and lead detailing formed and finished to match what is already there.

We flag before quoting where a property is likely to need listed building consent or conservation area approval, so you are not left mid-job with a planning hold-up on a roof that is already exposed to the weather.

The escarpment running through Watlington and Chinnor exposes roofs to a harder weathering than the more sheltered river towns lower down. Clay tiles and flint-and-brick roofs here show more frost damage and displaced tiles after a hard winter than equivalent buildings in the Thames valley.

A single displaced tile on these exposed slopes is often the first visible sign of wider wear across the roof, so we check adjoining courses rather than fixing only the obvious gap.

Oxford's older college and terrace buildings, along with market-town properties in Thame and Wallingford, carry a good deal of hand-formed lead in valleys, parapets and chimney flashings. Decades of thermal movement split these details at the folds, and the fix is too often a smear of mastic that traps water rather than shedding it.

We strip failed lead back to sound timber and re-form the detail correctly, sized and clipped to allow for expansion, matching the existing profile rather than introducing a visibly modern fix.

Farmhouses and rural properties on the open Vale of White Horse around Wallingford and Abingdon sit on more exposed plots than a sheltered town street, and take a heavier battering from winter storms crossing the county.

Lifted ridge tiles, stripped verges and displaced slates are routine after a bad night's weather here, and we assess the whole slope rather than a single visible defect before quoting a repair.

Rear extensions and outbuildings across Oxfordshire's market towns and city terraces are often finished with flat roofs that were never intended to last as long as they have. Many have already been patched once or twice and are now past sound repair.

Once the deck below a flat roof has softened, patching further is a false economy. We strip back to sound structure, correct the falls, and detail upstands and outlets so water clears properly rather than pooling.