Roofers in Stratton St Margaret
Upper Stratton, Lower Stratton and Kingsdown make up a large parish on the line of the Roman Ermin Way, where one Grade I church and two conservation areas punctuate Swindon's north-eastern suburbs.
Stratton St Margaret at a glance
- Distance
- 27.5 road miles east-south-east of Stroud
- Council
- Swindon Borough Council
- Conservation area
- Stratton St Margaret (Lower Stratton)
- Setting
- North-eastern suburbs of Swindon, on the Roman Ermin Way
Roofs along the Ermin Way, from Lower Stratton to Kingsdown
Stratton St Margaret is not one village but a parish made of several. Upper Stratton, Lower Stratton and Kingsdown all sit inside it, and together they form the north-eastern suburbs of Swindon. The name comes from the Latin strata, a nod to the Roman road Ermin Way, and Domesday Book of 1086 records the place as Stratone. Few suburbs can point to a road that old as the reason for their name.
That mix of an old settlement and a big modern parish is what a roofer meets here. The 2021 census counted 21,005 people in the parish, so this is a place of streets and cul-de-sacs rather than a single lane of cottages. Roofs in a parish this size come from many hands and many decades, and we assume nothing about one until we have been up and looked at it.
Three buildings give the parish its landmarks. The church of St Margaret dates from the late thirteenth century and was listed Grade I in 1955. St Philip's Church in Upper Stratton is red brick, begun in 1904 and finished in 1911. And in 1955 the Pressed Steel car plant was built within the parish boundary. A medieval church, an Edwardian brick church and a mid-century factory make three very different kinds of roofing problem, and they sit within a short distance of each other.
Lower Stratton and Kingsdown each have a conservation area of their own, which matters to anyone weighing up more than a simple like-for-like repair.
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
Lower Stratton's conservation area and the Grade I church
Before a covering is chosen, it helps to know which rules sit on the house.
Chapter 01In this chapter
Part of Lower Stratton is a conservation area, and Swindon Borough Council has designated a second one at Kingsdown. The church of St Margaret is Grade I listed. Swindon Borough Council is the planning authority here, not Stroud District, and that is worth stating plainly, because the guidance we give for Stroud's own conservation areas does not carry across the border into Wiltshire.
For a house inside either area, our habit is to ask before we price. Putting back what is already there, slate for slate or clay tile for clay tile, is a different category from swapping one material for another, adding roof lights or altering a chimney. Anything in the second group goes to the borough's planning team before we propose it. Whether an Article 4 direction here reaches roofs is for Swindon Borough Council to answer for a given address.
A Grade I roof is a different category of job
A Grade I listing protects the building inside and out, and its roof falls inside that protection. The route to permission then depends on what happens in the building. For a church holding services, the diocese issues a faculty before roof work starts, since the building sits outside normal listed building control. One that has stopped holding services is normally dealt with by the council, through listed building consent. Our lead roofing page describes the leadwork that old churches rely on at valleys, parapets and abutments, because that is where a medieval roof tends to leak first.
What a survey records
For any roof near the conservation area we photograph each slope and each junction, note the covering and its condition, and set out in writing which items are repairs and which are changes. That split is the useful part. It tells you, before any money moves, whether the job can go ahead on a like-for-like basis or has to be put to the council first, and the quote is written to match.
The first question on a protected roof is whether the work is a repair or a change.
Chapter 02
St Philip's red brick and the Edwardian streets of Upper Stratton
Buildings from the years around 1904 to 1911 have their own ways of wearing out.
Chapter 02In this chapter
St Philip's Church in Upper Stratton was begun in 1904 and completed in 1911, in red brick. It is a handy marker for the period, because houses put up in the same years tend to share its construction: brick walls, hand-cut timber roof frames, and a pitched covering sized to carry the weight of clay or slate. Roofs of that age give us a clear idea of where to look.
The first place is the timber. Rafters and battens that have stayed dry for a century are often sound, while the ends that sit in damp masonry, behind a failed gutter or under a rotted fascia, are the ones that give up. The second is the junction work. Where a slope meets a chimney or a party wall, the original weathering is frequently a mortar fillet, and a mortar fillet cracks as the building moves. Replacing it with lead flashing, tucked into the brick joint and dressed over the covering, is a standard repair. Chimney repairs deals with the stack work that goes with it.
Matching tiles on an older roof
On a street of near-identical roofs, a patch in a different shade stands out from the pavement. Reclaimed tiles can match an older clay roof well, though sorting and checking them takes time that is allowed for in the labour. We say which tiles are being reused and which are new, so the quote is clear before anyone starts.
- 1904year work began on St Philip's Church, Upper Stratton
- 1911year St Philip's was completed
- 1086year Domesday Book records the place as Stratone
The fixings behind the covering
Under the tiles, the nails and clips matter as much as the tiles. A rusted nail head can let a tile slide long before the tile itself has failed. When we strip a section for repair, we check the battens along the same slope, since a batten that has lost its grip is a better explanation for a run of slipped tiles than a single bad storm. Ridge and hip tiles are a separate matter. BS 5534:2014 no longer relies on mortar alone for them, so a re-bedded ridge is mechanically fixed as well.
Gutters and fascias belong in the same conversation. On a roof this age the eaves are where water first gets behind the brick, so we look at the line of the gutter and the state of the board behind it before talking about anything higher up. A sagging run, a joint that drips onto the wall or a fascia that has gone soft at the end grain each get a photograph and a mention in the quote, whether or not the tiles above them need work. Swindon's north-eastern suburbs have plenty of houses of this kind, and the eaves are usually where we start. If you have a photograph of the gutter line from the pavement, send it with your enquiry and we can tell you what we expect to find before we arrive.
Chapter 03
The Pressed Steel plant and the larger roofs of a 21,005-strong parish
A suburb of this size has big roofs as well as small ones, and they are priced differently.
Chapter 03In this chapter
The Pressed Steel car plant was built in the parish in 1955, which tells us that Stratton St Margaret has a commercial side as well as streets of homes. The plant is now owned by BMW and makes parts for the Mini. What its history shows is that commercial and industrial buildings are part of the parish, and they are not roofed like houses.
In this chapter
Low-pitch and flat roofs on larger buildings are usually single-ply membrane, built-up felt or metal sheeting, and each one fails in its own manner. A membrane lets go at seams and upstands. Felt blisters, or splits where water sits. Metal sheeting loosens at fixings and laps. BS 6229 asks for a design fall of 1:40 to leave a finished fall of 1:80 once tolerances and deflection are taken off (IKO, 2021). Where a roof ponds, the fault often lies in the structure and the falls, and a patch on the covering will not cure it. Our commercial roofing page explains how larger roofs are surveyed, phased and priced.
Access on a suburban plot
Suburban streets bring practical points of their own. Drives and parked cars narrow the room for scaffold, a skip needs a lawful place to stand, and a corner house may need scaffold along two sides. We look at all of it during the survey and the scaffold goes on the quote. A house with a flat-roofed extension is a good case: one scaffold can often serve both the pitched and the flat roof, which saves erecting it twice.
Distance from Stroud
The parish is a 27.5 road mile run from Stroud, heading east-south-east, so a visit is planned rather than dropped in. We tend to group a survey with other work in the area where we can. Surveys and larger jobs are booked with a start date, the site is cleared as the work finishes and waste is taken away. For an urgent leak, we make the roof safe first and talk through the longer repair afterwards. Once the job is finished, the guarantee covering our workmanship for 10 years comes in writing, and the quote covers every stage of the work.
Map showing Stratton St Margaret and the Stroud service radius, with nearby towns we also cover.
Near Stratton St Margaret
Roof work we do here
Upper Stratton Edwardian brick and St Margaret's church
I live in the Lower Stratton conservation area. What should I check before re-tiling?
Start with the council. Swindon Borough Council is the planning authority for Stratton St Margaret, and a repair that copies the existing covering is treated differently from a change of material. Send us a photograph of each slope and we will note what is there, so you can put exact facts to the council.
Can you repair a roof on an Edwardian brick house like those around St Philip's in Upper Stratton?
Yes. On houses from the early 1900s we look at the timber ends, the flashing junctions at chimneys and party walls, and the fixings, because those parts wear before the covering does. The survey photographs them and the quote covers each repair.
Does a church roof like St Margaret's need listed building consent?
That turns on how the church is used. One in use is normally covered by the ecclesiastical exemption and goes through a faculty from the diocese. One that has closed normally needs listed building consent from the council. No work should start until the right route is confirmed.
The flat roof on my rear extension holds water after rain. Is that normal?
Standing water usually points to the falls rather than the covering. Flat roofs are designed with a 1:40 fall so that, once tolerances are allowed for, they drain at 1:80 or better. On the visit we lay a level along the slope and say whether the roof needs its fall rebuilt or only a new membrane.