Roofer in Mitcham

Roofs in Mitcham

What Mitcham roofs are actually like

Mitcham is older than most of the suburbs around it, and the Cricket Green conservation area, designated in 1969 and extended in 1990, is the proof. The council’s appraisal describes roofs there as “predominantly pitched” with materials that “vary between plain clay tiles, pantiles or, increasingly during the 19th Century, (Welsh) slate”. Three different coverings on one street is normal here, and each one is repaired a different way.

The detail worth knowing about Mitcham is the London roof. In the appraisal’s words, “many of the earlier buildings have traditional double-pitched ‘London’ roofs with central valley gutters, which at the time was a more economical way to span deeper buildings using shorter timbers”. Two slopes, a gutter hidden between them, and a parapet in front so you cannot see any of it from the pavement. When that gutter blocks or its lining splits, water goes into the middle of the house. It is the single most common thing we get called to on this kind of stock, and it is a repair, not a new roof.

Elsewhere in CR4 the picture is mixed and the appraisal says so plainly: “roof finishes are a mixture of clay tiles, slates and concrete tiles, with no particular finish dominating”. There is interwar stock too, like the half-rendered semis of Preshaw Crescent under their tiled gabled roofs. Chimneys still matter to how the place looks, with the appraisal noting a roofscape “punctuated by the chimneys of the older properties”, which is worth remembering before anyone suggests taking a stack down rather than repointing it.