Clay tiles: the local vernacular
Drive through Horsham, Dorking or Tunbridge Wells and the rooftops are warm orange-red clay — plain tiles, often handmade, some over a century old. Clay's great gift is that it improves with age; its colour deepens rather than fades. We repair and re-roof with matching machine-made or genuinely handmade tiles, re-use sound originals wherever we can, and lay them at the correct gauge with proper nibs-and-nails fixing so the roof looks like it grew there.
Natural slate: precision work
Slate is unforgiving — every piece is holed, graded and laid by hand, and shortcuts show within a winter. We work in Welsh and top-grade Spanish slate, sort every delivery by thickness, and fix with copper or stainless nails that outlive the slate around them. On Victorian and Edwardian houses in towns like Brighton, Redhill and Lewes we'll match the existing format and coursing, so a repaired slope blends in rather than announcing itself.
Period homes and conservation areas
Plenty of the towns we cover — Reigate, East Grinstead, Lewes, Tunbridge Wells among them — have conservation areas where the council rightly cares about what goes on your roof. We're used to working within those rules: like-for-like materials, reclaimed tiles where required, and paperwork handled without drama. Listed building? We'll advise on consent before a single tile moves.
- Vertical tile hanging repaired and renewed — a Surrey and Sussex signature.
- Bonnet hips and valley tiles laid in the traditional style.
- Reclaimed tile sourcing for invisible repairs on older roofs.