Clifton's houses and roofs
Clifton grew from a rural medieval village just outside Bootham Bar. City of York Council's character study describes it as predominantly eighteenth- and nineteenth-century – late Georgian townhouses, Victorian villas and Victorian terraces – with a handful of seventeenth-century buildings and small cottages around Clifton Green, which keeps some of its village feel. Important Victorian and Edwardian villas stand in their own grounds along Shipton Road. Further north-west, the land between Shipton Road and Rawcliffe Lane was built up in the 1920s and 1930s with semi-detached and detached houses, and later twentieth-century housing followed.
Clifton's two conservation areas
The Clifton Conservation Area was one of York's earliest, first designated in 1968, extended in 1975 to meet the city-centre conservation area where Bootham gives way to Clifton, and revised again in 2002 to take in North Parade and Queen Anne's Road. The council's statement highlights the village character of Clifton Green, the large Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian villas, and the generous spaces between buildings.
The separate Clifton (Malton Way/Shipton Road) Conservation Area, designated in 1975, protects a small 1920s enclave designed by Barry Parker with Sir Raymond Unwin – the architects of New Earswick. Its statement describes a roofscape of gabled and hipped elements, bay windows dressed with plain tiles, and softly textured pinkish-red brick under French tiles, a type of interlocking clay tile. On houses like these, matching the tiles matters: patching with the wrong profile or colour stands out across a whole street.
Roofing problems we see in Clifton
- Georgian and Victorian houses – slate nail sickness, valleys and parapet gutters, and tall chimney stacks needing repointing.
- Garden-suburb and 1930s houses – broken interlocking clay tiles, tired hips and ridges, and tile-hung bay roofs. See tiled roofing.
- Terraced streets – rear-offshoot roofs, shared stacks and lead flashings.
- Mature trees – leaves and moss blocking gutters and valleys in Clifton's leafy streets. See guttering.
Getting to you from York
Clifton is about a mile north-west of York city centre, straight out along Bootham, so we can usually get to you quickly. We also cover Rawcliffe, Skelton and the Poppletons beyond. For a leak or storm damage, call 01904 922494 at any hour.
Book a visit in Clifton
Quotes are free and in writing. Our hours are Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 8am to 1pm, with 24/7 emergency call-outs on 01904 922494. You can also send us the details online, see typical roof costs, or read about nearby Poppleton, Heworth.