Yorkshire Stone Slate Roofs: Repair, Reclaim or Replace?
Most Yorkshire stone slate roofs in Leeds are worth reclaiming rather than replacing. The stone outlasts the battens and nails holding it up, so the usual job is a strip, new breathable membrane, new treated battens and a relay of the sorted stone. That adds roughly 20 to 35 per cent to the labour of a plain slate re-roof and keeps the original roof on the house. Ranges reviewed September 2026.
Stone slate is the roof that built the villages Leeds swallowed. Horsforth, Morley, Pudsey, Bramley and the older parts of Farsley are full of it. Thick sandstone flags, laid in courses that get smaller as they climb the slope, hung on oak pegs or nails over a gritstone wall. Some of the stone on those roofs has been up there since before the mills came, and a good deal of it has another century in it.
The problem is almost never the stone. It is everything holding the stone up.
What makes a stone slate roof different?
Three things. First, the slates are graded. The biggest and heaviest sit at the eaves and each course above is slightly shorter, which is why a stone roof has that stepped look from the street. Lift them at random and relay them in the wrong order and the roof will never sit right or shed water properly.
Second, they are thick and heavy. A square metre of Yorkshire stone weighs several times what the same area of Welsh slate weighs. The roof structure under it was built for that load, with heavy purlins and closely spaced rafters.
Third, they were hung, often on a tapered oak peg through a hand made hole, sometimes on a nail. Pegs rot. Nails corrode. The stone stays exactly as it was.
How do you tell whether the stone is still sound?
Sandstone fails by delamination. Water gets into the bedding planes, freezes, and lifts the surface off in flakes. On a Leeds roof that has taken a hundred and fifty winters of Pennine weather, you will normally find a proportion of slates that are flaking, cracked through, or broken at the nail hole.
Look for these when you or your roofer are up there:
- Flaking or powdering faces, especially on the north facing slope
- Slates that ring dull rather than sharp when tapped
- Cracks running with the bedding plane rather than across it
- Broken holes, which means the slate has slipped and been re-hung once already
- Slates that have been face nailed through, which is a sign of past patch repairs
Plenty of broken holes with sound stone is a good sign. That slate can be re-holed and relaid. Widespread flaking through the body of the slate is the case for replacement.
Repair, reclaim or replace: which one applies?
| Route | When it fits | Typical Leeds range |
|---|---|---|
| Local repair | One patch has slipped, the rest of the slope is tight, pegs elsewhere still sound | £180 to £480 for a handful of slates |
| Reclaim and relay | Slates largely sound, pegs or nails failing, slipping across the whole slope | Plain re-roof price plus 20 to 35 per cent |
| Relay with made up stock | 10 to 30 per cent of the stone has failed, the rest is good | Reclaim price plus the cost of matching reclaimed stone |
| Full replacement | Stone delaminating across most of the roof, or the structure needs rebuilding anyway | Priced as a re-roof in new or reclaimed covering |
Ranges reviewed September 2026. A mid terrace re-roof in Leeds sits at £6,500 to £12,500 before the stone premium, so a reclaim and relay on a stone terrace realistically starts in the high single figures of thousands.
Why does a stripped stone roof need new battens and membrane?
Because the old ones are the reason the roof is being stripped. Under stone slate you usually find riven laths or sawn battens that are undersized by modern standards, split at every fixing, and carrying a load they were never really rated for. There is often no underlay at all, or a sarking felt from the 1960s that has gone brittle and torn into ribbons over every rafter.
Once the stone is off, replacing them is cheap relative to the scaffold and the labour already committed. Leaving them is the single worst decision available on the job. You will have paid for access, for lifting every slate by hand, for sorting and re-holing, and then hung the whole lot back on timber that has ten years left in it.
A breathable membrane earns its place for a second reason. Leeds lofts are far better insulated than they were, which makes the roof space colder and more prone to condensation. A breathable underlay lets moisture out through the roof build-up instead of dripping off the back of a plastic sheet onto your loft insulation. Where the eaves detail allows, we also keep a ventilation path at the eaves as a belt and braces measure.
Does the weight matter?
It does, and it cuts both ways. If you are keeping stone, the structure already carries it, so the only question is whether any of the timber has rotted. Rafter feet at a failed gutter and purlin ends built into a damp gable are the two places to check once the covering is off.
The real risk is swapping materials in either direction. Putting stone back onto a structure that has been altered, or loading a formerly slated roof with stone, changes the loading the roof was designed for. Loadings and structural elements including roofs are covered by Approved Document A of the Building Regulations. If a roof is changing covering in a way that adds weight, that needs a structural opinion before anyone orders materials.
Does a conservation area change what you can do?
Yes. Leeds City Council designates conservation areas across the district, and several take in exactly the stone built streets this article is about. In a conservation area the council will expect the roof covering to match what is there, which normally rules out an artificial substitute on a visible elevation. Listed buildings are stricter again and need consent for the work itself.
Where the roof is in a conservation area and some of the stone has genuinely failed, the practical answer is usually reclaimed stone for the front elevation and a close match at the rear. Reclaimed Yorkshire stone is available across West Yorkshire in the common sizes, though matching an unusual thickness takes longer to source. Check your address with the council before you commit to a material.
Getting yours looked at
A stone roof is worth a proper survey rather than a glance from the pavement. We get up on the slope, photograph the state of the slates, the pegs and the battens, and tell you honestly which of the four routes above your roof is in. Our roof repairs page covers the smaller jobs, and the Horsforth page has more on the stone built stock around there.