Roofing in Aylsham

Aylsham is a Georgian market town with a protected centre and a lot of handsome older brick property around the market place. Pantile is the traditional covering and matching it on a repair matters, because a patch in the wrong tile is visible from the street for the next fifty years.

We source new and reclaimed pantile to match across NR11, and we take the same care over pointing and lead on the older buildings.

Why Aylsham looks the way it does

Broadland District Council's character statement puts much of the town's Georgian look down to two things: a canal dug in the 1770s that made the Bure navigable up to the mill, and the turnpike from Norwich, extended to Cromer in 1811. Red brick and red and black pantile were the local materials. Gault brick came into fashion later in the nineteenth century, and the railways brought in Welsh slate, which let roofs be pitched lower. It went on the better houses first and then on the terraces as it got cheaper. Around Millgate there is a lot of flint, including pebble flint from the shore.

So a single street can have a steep pantile roof next to a shallow slate one, and they need different repairs. A pantile relies on its pitch and its lap to shed water. A shallow slate roof relies on its nails and its head lap, and when the nails corrode the slates start to slide.

The Aylsham Conservation Area

The conservation area was designated in 1972 and extended in 1981 to take in the Old Hall and Blickling Road, then again in 1990 to include land between Heydon Road and Blickling Road and part of the Bure valley along Drabblegate. The council's statement lists changes to roofing materials and plastic rainwater goods among the things that erode the character of the area. If your house is inside the boundary, it is worth knowing that before you choose a replacement tile or gutter. We check the status of the property at survey and talk through the options.

On the older houses the chimneys and the lead around them usually need attention before the covering does. Pointing on a stack takes weather from every side, and a flashing that has lifted or split lets water into the chimney breast. It is worth having the stack looked at whenever the roof is, because the scaffold is already there.

Where to go next in Aylsham

Our general tiled roofing page covers pantile and plain tile work, and slate roofing covers the Victorian terraces. Loose or crumbling ridges are on ridge, valley and gable repointing, with more on the cause in why mortar falls out of ridge tiles. For stacks and flashings, see chimney repairs.