Spanish Slate Roofing in Windsor & Berkshire

Spain is one of the largest producers of natural roofing slate in the world, and good Spanish slate has become the first choice for new slate roofs across the south of England. It gives you what natural slate is loved for, a deep colour and crisp, even courses, with a consistency of colour and thickness that makes for a clean, regular finish.

It suits the houses we work on. Twickenham, Richmond, Windsor and Eton are full of Victorian and Edwardian homes that were built with slate, and a new slate roof keeps their character and their value where a concrete tile would flatten it.

What to look for in a slate:

• Natural stone, split from the quarry, not a man-made product imitating it
• Even thickness, so every course lies flat and the roof reads as one surface
• Consistent colour across the whole delivery, so no patchy slopes
• The right size for the pitch of your roof and the look of the house

A slate roof shows every mistake. Courses that wander, slates of different thickness side by side, badly cut verges and rough valleys are visible from the street for the next hundred years. That is why the set-out matters so much: the battens are measured to the slate before the first one goes on, so the courses run straight and the margins stay even from eaves to ridge.

Natural slates also vary slightly in thickness, even from a good quarry. We grade them on site, laying the thicker slates lower on the roof and the thinner ones higher, so every course sits flat.

The finish on our Twickenham roof is the result: crisp, uniform courses in a deep natural colour that suit the period street and will stand up to the British weather for generations.