Roofers in Canterbury

Much of historic Canterbury is roofed in clay peg tile, hung rather than nailed, on roofs that have moved and settled for centuries. They are beautiful and they are slow work: tiles are handmade and vary, the battens are often irregular, and the roof line is supposed to undulate.

A peg tile roof stripped and re-laid properly with the sound tiles reclaimed will outlast anything modern put in its place. Done quickly with new machine-made tiles it looks wrong from the street and usually contravenes what the property is allowed anyway.

Canterbury is far enough inland that salt is not a factor, so roofs here fail on time rather than on exposure. What we find is perished underlay, untreated battens that have gone soft, mortar fillets used where lead should have been, and previous repairs done cheaply.

The upside is that inland roofs generally give more warning and more time to plan. An inspection every few years is genuinely enough on most Canterbury property.