National Trust adapts Oxburgh Hall’s roof tiles for bats

New roof tiles fitted to a Grade I listed 15th Century manor house have been adapted to stop bats slipping off.

image: for illustration purposes only

…tiles were coated with paint mixed with sand of different sizes enabling the creatures to grip with their claws…

The BBC writes:

Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk was having its tiles replaced after they became weatherworn, cracked and damaged.

But after bats slipped off the glaze, the tiles were coated with paint mixed with sand of different sizes enabling the creatures to grip with their claws.

National Trust project manager David White said there were “numerous signs” of bats in roof spaces.

Conservationists selected tiles that looked the same as those used at the hall more than two centuries ago.

But experts had to develop the new non-slip coating for the tiles which were situated around 32 new bat openings on the roof….

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Mr White said: “There were signs of a maternity roost in the past, but the current use has been as day and night roosts for numbers of brown long-eared and common pipistrelle bats.

“We have worked with bat experts to create a new roost in the nearby Bell Tower and installed bat boxes in the trees on the north terrace to provide alternative roosting places whilst the roof works takes place.

“Currently the bell in the Bell Tower can’t be rung, so as not to disturb the bats.”

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