Builders in Okehampton,used to moorland weatherand Dartmoor's stone.

Granite is the material that defines this part of Devon, and it behaves differently from the cob and rendered blockwork we see further north around Torrington and Holsworthy. Granite rubble walls are hard, thick, and often built with lime mortar rather than cement, which matters enormously when you are cutting a new opening, tying in an extension, or repointing a damaged section. Get it wrong with the wrong mortar mix and you trap moisture behind an impermeable skin, and a wall that has stood for a hundred and fifty years starts to suffer in five. We work with lime where the building calls for it, and we know the difference between a stone wall that needs careful underpinning and one that just needs proper drainage away from its base.

Okehampton's position on the northern edge of the moor means it takes weather that towns further into the valleys simply do not see. Wind-driven rain off Dartmoor arrives horizontally, exposed gable ends and chimney stacks take a battering that inland properties are spared, and roofs here need to be detailed for genuine exposure rather than average Devon conditions. We see it in slipped slates on exposed pitches, saturated pointing on north and west-facing gables, and render that has been applied without enough attention to breathability and driven rain. Any extension or re-roof we price for a property on the moor-facing side of town accounts for that exposure from the outset rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Properties that sit inside or immediately adjacent to Dartmoor National Park boundary, which runs close to the southern and western edges of Okehampton itself, are subject to additional planning controls beyond the ordinary district process. Permitted development rights can be more restricted, and the National Park Authority takes a close interest in materials, roofline changes and anything visible from the open moor. We have handled work close to that boundary before and know to check which authority a given plot actually falls under before pricing goes anywhere near a client, because getting that wrong wastes everyone's time and money.

Away from the stone core, Okehampton has a good spread of 1960s to 1990s estate housing on its northern and eastern fringes, and these properties behave more like the housing stock we work on across the rest of North Devon: cavity block walls, straightforward loft spaces, and extension potential that does not carry the same listed-building or conservation sensitivities as the town centre. A rear or side extension on one of these estates is a genuinely different job to altering a granite terrace on Fore Street, and we price and plan for each on its own terms rather than applying a single approach across the whole town.