Marseille the Roof Tile of a Generation

In January 1897, the ship Antares sailed into Fremantle carrying half a million roofing and ridge tiles, shipped directly from Marseille, France. It was Perth's introduction to what would become the defining roof tile of a generation: the "interlocking tile from the 19th century" a large-format terracotta tile with a treble-lock, double-lapping design that sealed out weather far better than any roof tile the colony had seen before. Genuine examples carry a maker's mark pressed into the clay, most famously a bee.

Within the year, Perth's first synagogue on Brisbane Street had gone up under this tile. The Perth Mint, built 1896–97, carried it too. By 1903, the tile had become the standard for "the better class of house" across Claremont, West Perth and Mount Lawley. It would be another three decades, 1929, before Western Australia had its own local manufacturer producing a Marseille-pattern tile. Local WA manufacturing has since given way to importing market, making genuine, original French Marseille tile even harder to come by today, but Carter Roofing can still source it.

That same era produced some of WA's most significant heritage buildings still standing today, some of which Carter Roofing has re-roofed using genuine Marseille tile:

• The Redemptorist Monastery, North Perth, built 1902–03 in the Federation Gothic style, added to the WA Heritage Register in 2006.

• 57 Murray Street, built in 1912 for WA's Public Health and Medical Department, now home to Curtin Law School.

• The Subiaco Post Office, completed in 1927.

  
  

All three were built during the decades when the Marseille tile was the standard roofing material for buildings of their status.

It's a background built on years working heritage roofs in the UK, combined with contacts developed over decades in the trade, that allows genuine BMI Monier Marseille tile to be identified and sourced for heritage work here in WA.

Carter Roofing is a proud supporter of the Heritage Skills Association, reflecting our commitment to preserving the craftsmanship these roofs deserve.

If you care for a heritage roof and want it handled with an understanding of its history as well as its trade, we'd welcome the conversation.