Slating the Roof

 

This is obviously not the roof of the new building, but the roof of my office.


It was done by the same company, Knappett, and the same man. He was rather proud of the job he did nearly twenty years ago, when he roofed the office. He has every right to be so.

Note that the office roof has no guttering. The water flows into a moat that surrounds the office.


The slates were actually Spanish. I'm not sure why, but the roofers say that they are better and cheaper than any Welsh equivalent. I would have preferred Welsh.


This picture shows the lead being fixed to make sure that the roof is water-tight. Seeing the roofer cut and bend it, he would probably be using the same tools and methods that stretched back two or three thousand years at least.

Lead may be a metal that is slightly poisonous, but we've never really found anything better.


Here, the slates are all placed ready to be fixed by the clock.


This is a general view of the almost complete roof.


The roof is now complete.

The slate roof matches the house. Except that the house roof is nearly two hundred years old.