Roofer in Plympton, Plymouth

Plympton is not like the rest of the city

Most of Plymouth’s story is the Blitz and what followed it. Plympton largely sits outside that. The council’s conservation area appraisal for Plympton St Maurice records buildings that mostly date from the 18th or early 19th centuries, with earlier fabric often concealed behind Georgian frontages — and makes no mention of wartime bomb damage at all. A medieval roof structure was investigated at Chapel House on Fore Street during a 1998 excavation.

That means Plympton holds a concentration of genuinely old roofs, on buildings that have been altered repeatedly over two or three centuries. They reward being read carefully before anyone starts work.

The conservation area, in practical terms

Plympton St Maurice was designated a conservation area in 1968 and extended in 1977 and 2008. What that means for your roof is specific and worth knowing before you plan anything:

• A dormer or roof enlargement is never permitted development in a conservation area. It always needs planning permission — there is no fallback.
• Rooflights are still permitted development, but must not protrude more than 0.15 metres beyond the plane of the existing roof slope, and cannot rise above the highest part of the roof.
• Listed buildings need consent for work affecting their character, which on a roof can include the covering itself.
• Like-for-like repair is generally the least complicated route, which is another reason to identify the original materials properly.

The rest of Plympton

Plympton is not only the old town. Later 20th-century estates make up much of the district, with the roof forms and materials that go with their period. We work across all of it — and across neighbouring Plymstock and Mount Batten. Related: roof repairs, leadwork, re-roofing.