Drone services in Wellington

The Blackdown escarpment rises immediately south of the town with the monument on top of it, and in south-westerly weather the air accelerates over that ridge and drops onto the town below.

The higher streets feel it far more than the valley floor does, so exposure varies sharply across a short distance and two similar houses can have very different maintenance histories.

That acceleration works at ridge and verge fixings and at anything standing proud, particularly chimney stacks on the upper streets.

It also matters for flying, because conditions at the top of the town and down by the Tone are not the same on a gusty day.

The monument on the escarpment is a useful reminder of how much higher the ground behind the town is, and how little stands between the upper streets and weather coming over the top of it.

The woollen mill legacy left Wellington with large-span roofs that a town of this size would not otherwise carry, much of it in secondary use or awaiting it.

Those roofs bring the standard industrial list: corroded sheeting, brittle rooflights, valley gutters filling with debris, and structures large enough that walking them to inspect is neither safe nor sensible.

Where a historic mill complex is involved there is usually a conservation interest as well, so a record of the existing condition matters before anything is touched.

Terraced mill housing around them is the domestic counterpart: small, tightly packed, sharing valleys and party walls.

Where a mill complex has been partly converted, the mix of original large-span structure and newer domestic-scale roofing over parts of it makes for junctions that were never in the original design and need looking at.

Somerset roofs run to clay double roman tile more than Devon ones do, and it behaves differently from slate. It is heavier, it is laid to a different pattern, and a slipped tile leaves a larger gap.

The Georgian and Victorian centre carries a mix of that and natural slate, with the usual awkward access on the older streets.

Post-war and modern estates north and east are conventional and quick, generating the ordinary short list of ridge, verge and gutter findings.

Chimney stacks on the upper streets take the accelerated wind directly, and stack bedding and flaunching are among the more common findings on that side of town.

North of the town the Tone valley brings farmland, tracks, drainage and boundary questions, all of which read better from above than from a gateway.

The Blackdown Hills area generates land management and access records too, on ground that takes a long time to walk and photographs quickly.

The town is a reasonable run from Exeter up the M5, which makes it one of the easier Somerset destinations to reach at short notice when the weather cooperates.

Because it is a short motorway run, this is one of the Somerset towns where a same-week slot is realistic when a clear morning appears in the forecast.