Roofers in Tetbury
A town on a low hill above the river Avon, rebuilt by clothiers and wool-staplers in the 17th and 18th centuries, where gabled houses, a Gothick church and old warehouses all carry roofs that need reading carefully.
Tetbury at a glance
- Distance
- 10.3 road miles south-south-east of Stroud
- Council
- Cotswold District Council
- Conservation area
- Tetbury Conservation Area
- Setting
- Low hill above the river Avon
Tetbury's hill, its clothiers' houses and its estates
Tetbury stands on a low but clearly defined hill, with the river Avon bounding it on the east and a tributary brook on the south. The Victoria County History notes that few houses survive from before the late 16th century. Most were rebuilt in the prosperous 17th and 18th centuries, and clothiers and wool-staplers put up many of the leading houses in Long Street in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
Public buildings followed the money. The market-house and town hall went up in the new market-place in 1655, and wool-stapler Matthew Bamford built substantial warehouses at the entrance to Hampton Street around 1784, which the County History calls the most obvious surviving reminder of the town's former industry. The body of St Mary's parish church was rebuilt in Gothick style to designs by Francis Hiorn of Warwick, begun in 1777 and consecrated in 1781, and the tower and spire were rebuilt between 1890 and 1893.
Growth after that was slow. The Northfield estate of around 1890 had small stone houses, mostly semi-detached, and the town was not significantly enlarged until the mid-20th-century council estates north of the centre, which passed 100 houses by the late 1940s. Tetbury has a conservation area of its own, administered by Cotswold District Council. The town gives a roofer a wool-stapler's house, a warehouse, a church spire and a small semi, and each one is a different roofing job.
Modern brick housing estate with grey tiled roofs along a curving road 
Hillside of stone terraced houses with mossy stone tile roofs and chimneys
Chapter 01
Long Street's wool-stapler houses and the Hampton Street warehouses
Big houses and big storehouses put water where the eye does not look: in valleys, gutters and the joints between ranges.
Chapter 01In this chapter
A house built for a clothier or wool-stapler was meant to impress, and it was usually built with more roof than the average cottage: several ranges, gables facing the street, chimney stacks serving several rooms. A roof with that much geometry has a lot of junctions, and every junction is a place where lead, mortar or stone has to keep water out for decades. On a Long Street house we begin with the valleys and the stack abutments, since they are far more likely to let water in than the open slope.
Lead is the usual answer at those joints, and its thickness is a choice, not a detail. Lead sheet is graded by code, from Code 3 at 1.32 mm up to Code 8 at 3.55 mm. Code 4, at 1.80 mm, is what most flashing jobs call for in general, while heavier sheet, Code 5 or 6, suits valley gutters and parapets that carry more water. Correctly installed, lead flashing can last over 80 years (MyJobQuote, 2026). Our lead roofing and leadwork page explains how a code is chosen and why the sheet is fitted in lengths of around 1.5 metres.
The Bamford warehouses at Hampton Street raise a different set of questions. A building put up for storage, around 1784, has a wide roof and a large volume beneath it, and any conversion to homes or offices has placed a new use under an old covering. A roof like that is best read from underneath as well as from above: chinks of daylight through the covering, or a trail of stains on the ceilings, show where the water is getting in. Our commercial roofing page describes how larger roofs are surveyed and how their drainage is checked first.
Ventilating a big roof void
Warehouse and large-house roofs have deep voids that need air moving through them. For a roof with a non-breathable underlay, BS 5250 guidance as read through Marley calls for 25 mm of eaves ventilation along the length of the eaves where the pitch is 15 degrees or less, and 10 mm above that pitch. Where the pitch is over 35 degrees or the span is over 10 m, a continuous 5 mm opening at high level is added as well. Our survey checks which of those applies before any underlay is chosen.
Prices published and planned up front
Before we visit, typical UK ranges are published: lead flashing repairs run at about £50 to £70 per metre, and stepped flashing at about £80 to £120 per metre (Checkatrade, 2026, ex VAT). After the survey, those become your own written quote, with the scaffold and the lead included.
A valley or a stack junction on a big old house decides the roof's life.
| Code | Thickness | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Code 3 | 1.32 mm | Soakers and light-duty work |
| Code 4 | 1.80 mm | General flashings |
| Code 5 | 2.24 mm | Flashings, pitched valley gutters and dormers |
| Code 6 | 2.65 mm | Larger roofs and heavier detail |
Chapter 02
St Mary's Gothick body, its rebuilt spire and the market-house
Tall buildings and public roofs call for a different level of planning before anyone climbs.
Chapter 02In this chapter
St Mary's has two ages. The body of the church was rebuilt between 1777 and 1781 to Francis Hiorn's Gothick design, and the tower and spire were rebuilt between 1890 and 1893. Work on a roof beside a spire is another order of job from a cottage repair, since the height is great, the scaffold has to be designed for the site and access is controlled. As a working parish church, St Mary's stands outside the council's listed building system, and the permission that counts is a faculty issued through the diocese. The application belongs to the church and its advisers; our part is the survey and the written costs they need to support it.
In this chapter
The market-house and town hall of 1655 stand in the market-place and are public buildings. Public roofs are usually maintained by committees, and the practical need there is a clear report. A survey writes the roof up with photographs, ranks the defects by urgency and quotes for each repair, leaving trustees free to choose what happens now and what waits for next year's budget.
Height changes the planning of every job. On a tall building, scaffold dominates both the cost and the timetable. A mobile tower suits a short run of eaves, but a long run of roof needs a full scaffold with a loading platform. Scaffold for a house re-roof typically runs to about £700 to £1,300 (Checkatrade, 2026), and a spire needs far more than that, so scaffold is the first thing to check on any quote.
Large church and hall roof voids can shelter bats and nesting birds, which are protected, so a survey that finds signs of either pauses while we explain the next step.
Inside the conservation area
Tetbury has a conservation area, and Cotswold District Council's planning team is the authority to ask about it. Like-for-like repairs, using the same covering in the same pattern, are normally the smoothest route. Swapping the covering, adding a rooflight or altering the ridge detail should go to the council before you accept anything. Should your home be on the statutory list, tell us before the survey: the council's consent covers anything that alters its character, and our report flags the stretches of roof where that may bite.
- 1655year the market-house and town hall were built
- 1781year St Mary's rebuilt body was consecrated
- 1893year the rebuilt tower and spire were finished
Chapter 03
Northfield's stone semis and the council estates on the hill
Pairs of houses share a roof, which means a boundary repair is a two-household job.
Chapter 03In this chapter
The Northfield estate, laid out around 1890, had small stone houses, mostly semi-detached. Pairs of houses give a roofer one special problem: the roof is shared. A single ridge usually runs over both houses, the party wall is capped by a continuous line of mortar or flashing, and a chimney stack may serve both. When one owner repairs their half, the join with the other half is the part that most often fails, so the work needs to be planned together, even if only one house is being done.
That is why we survey semis in pairs where the neighbour allows it. Even a quick look at the adjoining roof shows whether the covering, the ridge and the abutments are in a similar state, and allows us to propose a repair that does not leave a weak joint at the boundary. If both houses want work, a shared scaffold is cheaper than two, and we show that saving in the quote.
Tetbury's council estates were built north of the town centre in the middle of the 20th century, with more than 100 houses by the late 1940s. They were built in quantity to a few designs, and the usual story on such estates is repeated detail: the same ridge, the same eaves, the same chimney, row after row. That is useful to a homeowner, because a problem found on one roof can be a clue to the next, and a repair method that works on one house is likely to work on its neighbour. It also means a different covering on a single roof stands out along the street.
The hill matters here as well. Tetbury sits on a low rise, so some houses look down a slope and others look along it. Scaffold on a sloping plot is stepped, working platforms are placed with care, and materials are carried up in a sensible order. Tetbury lies 10.3 road miles from Stroud, to the south-south-east, which keeps the journey modest, and a survey can normally be fitted around your photographs and a short call.
If you live in a semi and have a leak at the boundary, send us a photograph of the ridge line from the lane and a note on where the stain appears indoors. Our chimney repairs page also covers shared stacks, which are often the true source of a leak on a pair of houses.
Small stone houses from the 1890s are modest in size but not in age, and their roofs have usually been patched more than once. Our survey notes where earlier repairs sit, whether the patch was done in a matching covering, and how much of the original structure beneath it is still sound. That record lets you see which parts of the roof are worth keeping and which have reached the end of their useful life, and it gives the written quote a firm basis. We take photographs of your own roof as we go, so the quote can be tied to a picture of the part it covers.
Myth: A semi-detached house can be re-roofed without any thought for the house next door.
Fact: The ridge, party wall and any shared chimney are common to both roofs, so the boundary has to be planned with the neighbour in mind.
Map showing Tetbury and the Stroud service radius, with nearby towns we also cover.
Near Tetbury
Roof work we do here
Long Street gables, valleys and the Northfield estate
My Long Street house has several gables and valleys. Where do leaks usually start?
At the junctions: valleys, stack abutments and the meeting of two ranges. They are where lead and mortar do the work, and they are the first places a survey checks before it looks at the open slope.
Can you quote for the roof of a converted warehouse in Tetbury?
Yes. We survey the roof and its drainage from inside and out, photograph the defects and quote for scaffold, repairs and any replacement, so a freeholder or managing agent can compare options.
Who authorises roof work on St Mary's?
Because St Mary's is a church in regular use, the diocese issues a faculty. The church and its advisers make that application, and we provide the survey and costs they need to support it.
My semi shares a ridge with next door. Do we have to repair together?
Not always, but the boundary has to be planned together. We look at the neighbouring roof where access allows and design the repair so the join stays watertight, and sharing a scaffold can reduce the cost for both households.