Roofers in Billingshurst

Billingshurst is a large village in the Low Weald that grew in a line along Stane Street, the Roman road from London to Chichester that is now the A29. Horsham District Council's conservation area appraisal describes a distinctive and extensive roofscape, which includes Horsham slab roofs and brick chimneys. Early roofs here would have been thatched or, on more prestigious properties, covered in Horsham stone slates. A slab roof is not an ordinary tiled roof, and anyone who owns one should know what makes it different before a roofer sets foot on it.

1.1 What a Horsham slab roof asks of its owner

Horsham slabs are thick, rough-hewn pieces of stone, and a slope of them is a heavy thing. The timber underneath is built to carry that load, so a roofer who clambers about carelessly, or who loads a new covering on without checking, can do real harm. The slabs are laid in diminishing courses, which means the biggest sit down at the eaves and they shrink in stages towards the ridge. That pattern is part of the roof's character and must be copied when anything is relaid. A slipped or cracked slab can be replaced singly, provided the timber beneath it is sound and the replacement matches the course it joins. A slope that has failed across its width is a decision to take slowly, with the whole picture in front of you. Our Horsham stone roofing page covers repair, relaying and the stone itself in detail.

1.2 Brick chimneys that carry the skyline

The appraisal names brick chimneys as part of the roofscape, and a chimney on a stone roof earns its place. Where slabs meet a stack, the junction is stepped, and each step needs its own piece of lead. After years of weather those pieces lift, the mortar around them crumbles and water finds a way into the loft. We reopen the junction, renew the lead and repoint with a mortar that suits the old brick, never one that is harder than the bricks. Our chimney repairs page sets out what each fault looks like as seen from below and up close.

1.3 Thatch in the story

Thatch belongs to this village's past rather than to a repair job for us, and the appraisal mentions it as an early covering. If you own a thatched building, call a thatcher. If a thatched house shares a wall with a tiled or slated neighbour, we can take care of the lead and the junctions between them. Where the two roofs meet, the party wall and the shared gutter are the places to check first, because each owner's roof drains onto the other's.

Billingshurst grew from about 2,000 people after the Second World War to 8,232 in 2011, and the council's appraisal says the expansion accelerated from the 1970s. A railway station opened outside the village in 1859 on the line from Horsham to Petworth, which was extended south to the coast four years later. So alongside the old slab and clay roofs on Stane Street there is a large body of newer housing, with newer roofs on it. They need a different kind of attention.

3.1 Roofs from the 1970s onwards

A house built in 1976 is now about fifty years old. We cannot tell you from the road what covering it has. If it is concrete tile, Marley says to expect around 60 years, though it stresses that figure is no guarantee. The felt underlay beneath the tiles can have gone brittle by then, which only shows when a few tiles come off. The parts that give way first on a roof of that age are usually not the tiles. They are the ridge bedding, the verge pointing, the felt underlay beneath and the small lead pieces at stacks. Our survey photographs show each one, so you can judge whether a repair, an overhaul or a new roof makes sense. Our roof repairs page covers what a typical repair involves.