Roofers in Stow-on-the-Wold
Stow-on-the-Wold crowns an 800-foot hill where the main Cotswold roads meet, 30.6 road miles out of Stroud and heading east-north-east, and its Market Square buildings give roofers plenty of eighteenth and nineteenth century work to read.
Stow-on-the-Wold at a glance
- Distance
- 30.6 road miles east-north-east of Stroud
- Council
- Cotswold District Council
- Conservation area
- Stow-on-the-Wold and Maugersbury
- Setting
- 800-foot hilltop on the Fosse Way
Stow's hilltop roofs, from the Market Square to the Fosse Way
Stow-on-the-Wold sits on top of an 800-foot (244 m) hill where main Cotswold roads meet, among them the Roman Fosse Way, now the A429. A town on a summit is visible from every direction, and so are its roofs. A repair that is slightly out of keeping on a valley street can pass unnoticed; on a hilltop, with the Market Square open to view, it shows.
Trade built the town. Henry I set up the first weekly market in 1107, and Edward III's charter of 1330 established an annual August fair where sheep and horses could be sold. Daniel Defoe reported that 20,000 sheep were sold at Stow in a single day during the eighteenth century. Most of the buildings around the Market Square date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so the roofs above the shops and houses there are the product of two centuries of repair and adaptation.
St Edward's Church has ancient yew trees at its north porch and held prisoners after the 1646 Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold. The town sits in the Stow-on-the-Wold and Maugersbury conservation area, as Cotswold District Council records it. The town has one Grade I building, St Edward's itself, four at Grade II* and well over a hundred at Grade II. The church itself has Saxon origins and Norman work in the nave, and its tower and clerestory are fifteenth-century. The survey establishes what each roof is made of, and the council can confirm whether your building is listed.
Flint and brick cottage with a clay tile roof beside a road 
Wooded hillside lined with rows of stone houses and slate roofs
Chapter 01
Market Square roofs of the 1700s and 1800s
Two centuries of shop and house roofs, all under the eye of the square.
Chapter 01In this chapter
The sheep fair gave Stow its Market Square, and the square gave the town its buildings. Most of those around it date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A roof of that age has usually been touched many times. Rafters have been replaced one at a time, coverings have been renewed in sections, and flat roofs and extensions have been added behind the street frontage. The result is a roof that is rarely uniform, and we survey it as a collection of separate problems.
The first thing we look at is the structure. Eighteenth-century timbers were cut for the job, and the span, the spacing and the jointing vary from building to building. A sagging ridge or a bellied slope is a sign that something below the covering has moved, and the covering cannot be put right until the cause is understood. Photographs from the roof space show the rafter feet, the wall plates and the purlins, and these decide whether the job is a repair or a re-roof.
The second thing is the way the roofs meet their neighbours. Buildings around a market square stand shoulder to shoulder, and a gutter, a valley or a party wall may be shared. If your roof meets next door's, we ask who is responsible for the join and note the answer on the quote. Where a shop has a flat roof behind its gabled front, our flat roofing page explains the membranes we fit and how they are priced.
Fairs, sheep and the scale of the old trade
It is easy to forget how busy Stow once was. Defoe's report of 20,000 sheep in a single day gives a picture of a market that filled the square and the streets leading from it. The buildings that served it needed storage, stabling and rooms for traders, and many of those spaces have since become shops, flats and offices. A change of use often brings a change in how the roof is lived under, with rooms in what was once a loft, and we ask about that before we recommend insulation or ventilation.
Pricing a full roof at the square
A full re-roof on a house typically costs between £5,000 and £12,000, according to MyBuilder (2026), and a shop or terrace with a street frontage will depend on its size and access. The written quote that follows a survey covers scaffold, strip-out, materials, labour and disposal, which lets you set it beside any other and see where the difference lies.
A roof around a market square has two centuries of other people's repairs in it.
- 1107year Henry I set up the first weekly market
- 1330year Edward III's charter established the annual August fair
- 20,000sheep Defoe reported sold at Stow in one day
Chapter 02
The Fosse Way, the A429 and getting materials to a hilltop
A town where main roads meet is easy to reach and busy to work in.
Chapter 02In this chapter
Stow stands where several main roads come together, including the Roman Fosse Way, now the A429. That is a help to a roofer, because lorries can reach the town on good roads. It is also a complication, because a town at a road junction has traffic passing close to its buildings, and the ground in front of a shop or house can be a pavement beside a live road rather than a quiet lane.
In this chapter
That changes how a job is set up. A delivery of tiles, slates or timber has to be timed and positioned so that it does not block a road, and a skip needs a safe place to stand. If the scaffold reaches over a pavement, the highway authority has to license it, and passers-by need a covered way underneath. We deal with that application and price it in the quote. Our aim is a site that people can walk past without noticing, and a roof that is open for as short a time as possible.
The hilltop setting adds one more point. A roof on a summit is seen from the roads that climb to it. The survey looks at the evidence on the roof itself: where moss has taken hold, which slopes carry the most staining, whether ridge or verge fixings have lifted, and where the lead at a chimney has begun to fail. Those marks tell us which parts of the covering have been working hardest.
Planning a job around a busy junction
Big jobs in a town centre are broken down into stages. First the scaffold and its protection, then the stripping, which is the noisy and dusty part, then the new underlay and battens, which make the building watertight, and finally the covering and the finishing details. At the end of each day the open roof is sheeted, so a change in the weather does not find a gap. For a leak that cannot wait, we prioritise making the roof safe first, then plan the full repair, and our roof replacement page sets out the way a full job is organised from survey to clear-up.
Timing and neighbours
Where a roof is shared with, or overlooked by, neighbours, a note through the door a week ahead is courteous and practical. It lets them move a car, bring washing in or ask us a question. We give you a short written plan of the working hours, the scaffold position and the skip location so that you can pass it on to whoever shares the building with you. Tenants, shop staff and the people next door then know when the noise and the scaffold are coming, and when they will be gone.
Myth: A hilltop roof needs a stronger covering than a valley one.
Fact: The covering is chosen for the existing structure and the planning rules, and the survey notes the signs of wear on each slope so that weak spots get attention.
Chapter 03
St Edward's yews, old walls and trees close to the roofline
Mature trees beside historic buildings change how a roof ages.
Chapter 03In this chapter
St Edward's Church has ancient yew trees at its north porch, and the church held prisoners after the 1646 Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold. Trees that old are a feature of the town, and anyone with a house or shop near a large tree knows what that means for the roof: leaves in the gutters, shade on the slopes and, sometimes, branches that brush the covering.
Leaves and needles block outlets and sit in valleys, where they hold water and feed moss. A valley that stays damp deteriorates, because the lead or the lining beneath the debris is never allowed to dry. We clear gutters and valleys as part of any repair visit, and we note where an overhanging branch is the cause of the trouble. Cutting a tree is a matter for its owner and, for some trees, for the council, so we recommend you check before anything is pruned.
Shade also brings moss. A thick mat of moss keeps the covering damp and can push up the edges of tiles or slates beneath it. The right treatment depends on the covering, since a hard wash can damage soft or old material; MyBuilder (2026) lists manual scraping at £5 to £10 per m², soft wash at £15 to £20 per m² and pressure washing at £10 to £15 per m², and the same guide cautions that high pressure can harm fragile tiles. Our roof cleaning and moss removal page explains how we choose the method for each roof.
Protected species near old trees
Old trees and old buildings are both homes for wildlife. Roosting bats and nesting birds are protected by law, so any sign of them halts work while we take advice. Mature trees, old walls and roof voids are the places both turn up, and an old Stow roof is exactly such a place.
Churches, churchyards and consent
St Edward's, as a church in use, would go through the diocese for roof work, by faculty. For a privately owned building in the conservation area, which is called Stow-on-the-Wold and Maugersbury by Cotswold District Council, the council is the contact for any change of covering. Tell us your address and we can describe the planned work so the question you put to them is precise.
Map showing Stow-on-the-Wold and the Stroud service radius, with nearby towns we also cover.
Near Stow-on-the-Wold
Roof work we do here
Market Square gables and the yews of St Edward's
My shop near Stow's Market Square has a sagging roof slope. Is that a re-roof?
Not necessarily. A sag usually means the timbers below the covering have moved, and the cause has to be found first. The survey photographs the roof space and tells you whether the job is a repair to the structure or a full re-roof.
How do you cope with scaffold on a pavement beside the A429?
Scaffold over a public footway needs the highway authority's permission, and people walking underneath need a covered passage. Once you confirm a start we apply for the licence, and the written quote already includes the scaffold.
Are the yews at St Edward's a problem for roofs nearby?
Any large tree close to a building drops debris into gutters and valleys and casts shade where moss grows. We clear the gutters, check what lies beneath and explain the cause. Pruning a tree is a decision for its owner, and sometimes for the council.
Does a Stow-on-the-Wold roof job come with a written guarantee?
Yes. We give a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing, and the photographs taken at the survey stay with your quote, giving a record of the roof's condition before we touched it.