Roofers in Lincolnshire

Roofing in Lincolnshire

Orange pantiles are the signature of Lincolnshire, and they arrived by sea. Boston and the Humber ports traded with the Low Countries and the Baltic, and the curved clay tile came in as ballast and as cargo, spreading across the Fens, the Wolds and the coast until it became the default covering for anything that was not thatch. Pantiles are cheap to lay and unforgiving to maintain: they were traditionally bedded on torching or mortar fillets that crumble with age, and once a few slip in a gale the wind gets underneath the rest. Along the Lincoln Edge and around Stamford the material changes to limestone, and Stamford in particular carries roofs of Collyweston stone slate from just over the county boundary, laid in diminishing courses and among the most demanding coverings in England to repair properly.

Exposure is the county's other constant. Lincolnshire is flat, open and windy, with very little shelter between the North Sea and the Wolds, and the coastal towns from Skegness northwards take the weather without any hills in the way. In the Fens, peat shrinkage and differential settlement gradually pull buildings out of square, which is why Fenland roofs so often show racked planes and split ridges rather than a single obvious defect. Grimsby and Scunthorpe add a large stock of interwar and post-war industrial housing where guttering and fascia work dominate.

The honest advice for a Lincolnshire homeowner is to treat wind as the primary risk. After any serious blow, look for slipped or lifted pantiles from the ground before water gets into the loft. If your roof is mortar-bedded, ask about mechanical fixing rather than simply re-bedding. And if you live in Stamford's conservation area, do not accept a quote from anyone who cannot show you stone slate work they have already done.