Roofers in Rotherham

The roofs of Rotherham

Rotherham is a steel and coal borough. The Victorian worker housing of Masbrough, Eastwood and Templeborough, built from the 1890s to the 1930s, runs from solid-wall slate-roofed terraces to inter-war semis, and the pit villages of Maltby, Dinnington, Wath, Rawmarsh and Swinton mix their own terrace rows with council semis from the same years. Moorgate is the other Rotherham: a Victorian building boom between 1850 and 1900 lined Moorgate Road with large villas in mature grounds, a conservation area since 1977.

The council built early and built big. By 1930 the Corporation had put up more than three thousand homes at East Dene, Herringthorpe, Canklow and Meadowbank; prefabs and then permanent building followed the war, and Wath added the six-hundred-home Newhill Estate in the 1950s. Much of that stock is now owner-occupied and the roofs on it are original or on a single tired re-cover. The council is renewing roofs on its own homes estate by estate, with recent and current schemes in Catcliffe, East Herringthorpe, Thurcroft, Richmond Park, West Melton, Maltby and Dalton, which tells you the age those 1930s to 1950s roofs have reached everywhere.

Water matters in the Rother valley. Catcliffe and Treeton flooded in 2007 and again in Storm Babet in 2023 when the river reached its highest recorded level and homes were evacuated. On the roofs that means gutters and outlets that cope, and on the flat-roofed extensions and garages of the estates it means proper falls and outlets rather than another layer of felt.