Clay Tile Roofing in Windsor & Berkshire

Clay tiles are fired from natural clay, so the colour runs right through the tile instead of sitting on the surface. They do not fade the way a coloured concrete tile does. They mellow, and twenty years on a clay roof looks settled and warm rather than tired.

That is why clay is the original covering on so many Victorian and Edwardian homes in Windsor, Eton, Richmond and Twickenham, and why it is the right choice when one of those roofs needs replacing. A clay roof keeps the character of the house and of the street.

There are two main types:

• Plain clay tiles: small, flat tiles laid double-lapped, so every point on the roof is covered by at least two layers. The classic look of period roofs, and the most detailed to lay.
• Clay interlocking tiles: larger tiles that lock together at the sides, faster to lay and lighter on the timbers, with the same natural colour.

Handmade clay tiles have a slightly uneven, textured face. Machine-made tiles are crisper and more regular. We help you pick the one that suits your house.

A clay tile roof on a period house is rarely one plain slope. It has dormers, bays, chimneys, valleys and walls running through it, and each of those is a place where water tries to get in. The tiles will outlast almost everything else on the house. The junctions decide whether they get the chance.

So we spend our time where it counts. Lead is cut, dressed and wedged in at every abutment, with soakers under the tiles where a wall rises through the roof. Tiles are cut to sit tight at the valleys and around dormer cheeks, not left with gaps filled with mortar. Where a flat section or a bay roof meets the clay, it is detailed so the two work together.

On our Richmond job that meant new lead flashings on every junction and a new flat roof section renewed in the same project, so the whole house was brought up to one standard in one visit.