Roofers in Leicestershire

Roofing in Leicestershire

Swithland slate is Leicestershire's own roofing material, and it is now effectively irreplaceable. Quarried in Charnwood Forest until the railways made Welsh slate cheaper and the local trade closed in the late nineteenth century, it is thick, dark and irregular, laid in diminishing courses with the widest slates at the eaves and holed at the head rather than punched from below. Plenty of it survives on older buildings across the county, particularly in the Charnwood villages and on churches, and when a Swithland roof needs work the only realistic source of replacement is salvage. Any contractor quoting to strip one and take the slate away should be asked what they intend to do with it.

Most of the county's roofing volume, though, is in Leicester and the towns around it. The city has one of the largest Victorian terraced stocks in the Midlands, built for hosiery and boot-and-shoe work, under Welsh slate and clay tile, followed by extensive interwar suburbs at Wigston and Oadby. Loughborough adds a university town's mix, Coalville and the western fringe sit on the old coalfield with the settlement history that implies, and Market Harborough, Ashby and Lutterworth contribute Georgian market-town centres under conservation control. Across the county, 131 firms are listed, with repairs and full re-roofing leading the services offered.

The practical point for a Leicestershire homeowner is that the age of your roof determines the whole approach. On a Victorian terrace, find out whether the slates are still sound and only the nails have gone, because salvaging and re-hanging is often the better answer. On anything with Swithland slate or in a conservation area, get the material question settled formally before you commit. And on the former coalfield, treat a leaning chimney as a structural issue rather than a pointing one.