Roofers in Bedhampton

Bedhampton's older half is easy to picture from the records. A cluster of low houses near the church formed the original village, and a meadow called Bedbury Mead separated it from the inns and houses along the Portsmouth to Havant road. Havant Borough Council's appraisal says the Old Bedhampton Conservation Area was first designated in 1980, and it describes a palette of coursed knapped flints, blue vitrified headers and slate roofs, with red brick and tile hanging, London stocks and stucco. For a roofer that list is a set of junctions to get right, because every wall material meets the roof differently.

1.1 Where slate meets knapped flint

Flint is hard and irregular, so lead cannot simply be pressed against it. A flashing, the lead dressed between wall and roof so water sheds outward, has to be fitted into the joints between the courses and dressed down over the slates, and in a flint wall that takes patience. Slate itself is long-lived. CORC says well-maintained slate can last 100 years or more, so a slipped slate rarely means the whole roof is finished. Where the nail has rusted through, a tingle (a narrow metal clip that hooks under a slate) holds the slate in place without lifting the course above it. Natural slate also has a minimum pitch of 20 degrees, according to Cupa Pizarras, which is worth knowing before anyone suggests altering a slope. Our slate roofing page covers the work in detail.

1.2 Tile hanging beside a roof

Tile hanging is a skin of small clay tiles fixed vertically up a wall, and the appraisal records it alongside the red brick. Where it finishes at the eaves or meets a roof slope, the junction is a place where water can slip behind the tiles, so we look there during every survey. A crack in the render below an eaves line, or a stained patch under a hanging-tile gable, often traces back to a gutter or a flashing, not to the tiles themselves.

1.3 What the 1980 designation means for your roof

Like-for-like re-covering is not normally development, because it does not materially affect appearance, but a listed house changes the answer, and so would an Article 4 direction. Havant's own page for Article 4 directions names Langstone, Homewell in Havant and three on Hayling Island, and none covers Bedhampton. Ask Havant Borough Council's planning team before changing a material, and keep the photographs from our survey, which show what was on the roof before work began. That record helps if anyone later asks what a repair was matched to. The 1980 boundary is also why we choose slate sizes and colours deliberately, instead of reaching for whatever is in stock.

The church of St Thomas gives Old Bedhampton its other fixed point. Its chancel arch, of about 1140, is the oldest dated detail the history records, and the church is listed Grade II. It sits on the coastal plain at the head of Langstone Harbour, west of Havant, which says something about the ground around it: open, flat and close to tidal water. Fixing specifications depend on geographic location and local wind exposure, and the right answer is always site-specific. So each house is read on its own, and we look hard at verges, ridges and the edges of flat roofs, the places weather works on first. Sea weather here means gales and driving rain, and an old roof that has stood through many of them still deserves an honest look at its fixings.

3.3 What the survey leaves you with

After a visit you receive pictures taken on your own roof and a plain verdict, then a single total price in writing. If a patch will do, that is what we recommend. If the covering is worn out, the photographs show you why. What moves the price is access, how big the roof is, the covering chosen and what the survey uncovers once the old slates or tiles are lifted. The written quote follows the survey, so there is no figure to react to before we have seen the roof.