Special paint at Oxburgh Hall stops bats from slipping off the roof

Here's a bat testing the coated tiles - the new paint means they can climb safely into their roosts!

Conservationists restoring the roof of a 15th-century manor house and tourist attraction are using special paint on the tiles to help make sure bats don't slip off!

The original roof tiles on the National Trust's Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk had become weatherworn, cracked and damaged, so they were replaced with tiles which looked the same.

But they noticed that bats were slipping off because of the smooth glaze on top of the tiles!

Experts did some tests and found that a coating of paint mixed with sand of different sizes, meant the bats could grip on better with the tiny claws on their thumbs and feet.

The paint is going to be used by builders on around 32 new bat openings on the roof - they'll allow the bats to climb into roosts including in the roof spaces and the attics.

Brown long-eared bats use attics and roof spaces to roost

Fortunately the bats wouldn't have come to any harm because of the slippery tiles, but a spokesperson from the National Trust says it would have meant they'd lose their safe roosting space in the roof.

It's also part of the planning permission for the £6 million re-roofing project that the National Trust protects the bats.

Surveys found a total of six bat species flying close to the moated manor house but it is brown long-eared, common pipistrelle and soprano pipistrelle bats which actually roost in the building.

Oxburgh Hall - which has its own moat - has been managed by the National Trust since the 1950s. Members of the public can visit it

Project manager David White said: "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."