Stone
Roofing in England Terry Hughes.
| The use of stone for roofing has
a very long history. Archaeological studies have recorded their use at
Roman sites throughout England and Wales and there are examples in many
rocks. These include Purbeck limestone at Encombe and Norden near Corfe
Castle, Collyweston Slate at Irchester and Apethorpe and Cotswold stone
slates at Ditchley and Shakenoak. In the sandstones Pennant has been frequently
recorded in the Bristol region, and was used at Roman sites at Llantwit
Major and Ely near Cardiff. Further north a micaceous sandstone roof tile
has been excavated at Uriconium B, now Wroxeter, south-east of Shrewsbury. |
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| It appears that stone slates fell
out of use with the departure of the Romans and the earliest subsequent
records come from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By this time
they were being used in many parts of the country. Accounts of their use
are recorded by Thorold Rogers (1882), Walton (1941), Salzman (1952), Aston
(1974), Lawson (1985), Moorhouse (1990), Hughes (1996) and Baldwin (1998). |
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| In Purbeck the quarries which had
been worked for masonry from an early date also produced roofing. In 1447
a parcel of white Purbeck slate was bought for 20 shillings (Thorold Rogers
1882). |
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| In 1238, Cotswold stone was being
exploited for roofing at Woodstock, although, contrary to many opinions,
this would have been the surface weathered ‘presents’ rather than deliberately
frost-split Stonesfield slates (Aston 1974). In 1250, Kirkstall Abbey utilised
the Elland Flags of Yorkshire (Walton 1975, 40 quoting Mayhall [1861],
127) and, by 1286, ‘sclatestone of Peterborough’, possibly an early reference
to Collyweston Slate, was used to roof Cambridge Castle. The use of Collyweston
Slate was well established by this period with records of 14,000 slates
being supplied to Rockingham Castle in 1375 and 5,000 to Oakham Castle
in 1383 (Arkell et al 1947). Thorold Rogers recorded the use of what must
have been mainly stone slates throughout the Midlands from 1410 to 1570.
He described how the size varied: ‘the three kinds generally discovered
in the Oxford accounts being that of common large, middling and small’.
He also noted that they were ‘sometimes bought after they had been shaped
and holed, called bateratio, sometime in the raw state’ (Thorold Rogers
1882, 435) |
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| By 1367, the Hoar Edge Grit was
being worked near Acton Burnell, south of Shrewsbury, and had been used
at Harley to the east. In 1489 even such a remote site as Corndon Hill,
in Montgomery (now Powys), was exploiting dolerite for roofing. This would
later be used at Pride Hill in Shrewsbury (Lawson 1985, 116). Further south,
at Stanton Lacy near Ludlow, roofing supplied in 1390 was probably from
the Old Red Sandstone. The Cretaceous sandstone of Sussex was also exploited
from an early date. In 1301, 2,500 ‘stones called scletes’ were transported
from the Shortsfield quarry to Thorney near Horsham. The Wiston Rolls also
record the carriage in 1357 of 12 wainloads of stone from Horsham to Wiston
and the payment of 3d to 4d per day for the roofers (Sussex Archaeological
Collection 54.152). |
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| A hundred years earlier stone for
roofing was being worked at Abbey Dore in Herefordshire. |
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| Those present and future should
know that I, Hugh son of William le Crone of Moccas, have given and conceded
for myself and my heirs, and confirmed by this my present charter, to God
and St Mary and the monks of Dore, serving God and forever to serve him
there, in free, pure and perpetual alms, all that piece of land with all
its appurtenances and liberties, which lies between the land of these monks
and the land of Margery le Crone, my mother, as appears by the marks and
boundaries placed between them, and which are named before in the charter
which I have from the same Margery. To have and hold to themselves and
their successors from me and my heirs fully, freely, peacefully, and quit
of all secular service, suit of court and claim which belong to this land,
or could belong in any way. Also I concede and give to these monks the
marl, sand and also slate, and the quarry which I have by the gift of the
same Margery, my mother, in all her land wherever they can be found, with
free entry and exit, without injury or any hindrance or forbidding, and
also common of pasture throughout all this land. And if anyone wishes to
injure or hinder these monks over these matters, I and my heirs will acquit
and maintain them through all things at our own expense against the chief
lord [of the fee] and whatever others, in all things and for ever. And
so that this my concession and gift should endure valid and undisturbed
forever, I have strengthened the present writing by the application of
my seal. |
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| With these witnesses: Lord Walter,
vicar of Bredwardine, Roger son of Hugh of Radnor, Richard le Breth, Peter
the clerk, John de la Bache, Hugh de la Bache, John Muschet and many others. |
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| Given at Dore on the day of Saint
Ethelbert, king and martyr, 56th year of the reign of Henry III [20th May
1272] (The feoffment of Hugh son of Margery le Crone) |
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| In the north of England, Stephen
Moorhouse’s study of the Court Rolls and other documents relating to 20
locations in the West Yorkshire Coal Measures revealed an extensive industry
in existence between 1314 and 1524 (Moorhouse 1990). Salzman (1952, 393)
also recorded that John Fossor, Prior of Durham 1341—74, discovered a ‘quarry
of sclatstane at Beaurepaire’ and the execution of a building contract,
including stone tiles for the roof, at Brandsby in 1341. If this is Brandsby
in North Yorkshire it may be an early reference to the exploitation of
the ‘Great oolite, about Brandsby in the Howardian Hills [where] the grey
limestone series yields a hard siliceous limestone, from which … large
slabs and roofing tiles were obtained’ (Howe 1910, 323). |
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| Contrary to the generally held view
that the early use of stone slates was restricted to important buildings,
his review of documentary evidence in West Yorkshire led Moorhouse to conclude
that by the fourteenth century they were already being used for houses
at all levels of society and for all building types. He also found that
slaters ran their own quarries, a practice which still continues in some
quarrying centres today (Moorhouse 1990). |
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| From the seventeenth century the
demand for more buildings using more substantial materials encouraged the
development of the stone industry and the manufacture of stone slates.
At that time stone slate delves were still largely supplying a small local
market. This was to change during the Industrial Revolution when the increasing
demand for flagging for pavements and factory floors and roofing for houses
and mills stimulated the delving of fissile rocks. This expansion was a
feature of both rural and industrial regions but it was in the Carboniferous
rocks of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the Devonian of Angus and Caithness
in which the scale of operations could truly be called industrial. Thousands
of tons of flagging were exported to all parts of Britain and even to North
America. Roofing was also produced in large quantities but tended to remain
close to the centres of production. This was a reflection of the by now
well-established segmentation of the market for roofing materials, essentially
a segmentation based on price, as the cost of moving the heavy stone slates
limited their geographical use. |
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