Roofers in Findon

Findon parish is famous in the county for its sheep fair and for race-horse training, and it straddles a wind-gap in the South Downs, lying entirely on the chalk. The village centre is a conservation area designated in March 1986, centred on The Square, where the 17th-century timber-framed Gun Inn stands. The county history says that most of the older buildings of the village are of flint or brick, with some rendering. For a roofer that mix is a checklist of junctions, because a slope has to be sealed against flint, against brick and against render, and each of them behaves differently when water finds a gap.

1.1 Where a roof meets flint, brick or render

Flint is irregular and hard, so a lead flashing, the strip of sheet metal that shields the meeting of slope and masonry, is let into the joints and folded down over the covering. Brick is easier to chase. Render needs the most care of the three, because it cracks along the line where the lead enters it, and then water runs behind the coat instead of off it. We look at the wall for those cracks before looking at the slope. The same goes for chimneys. MyJobQuote's guide, updated on 22 September 2026, gives £350 to £460 for a full replacement of the lead round a chimney without scaffold and £700 to £920 with it, typical UK figures that only a survey can turn into a real price. If you are weighing lead work, our lead roofing and leadwork page sets out the codes and where each is used.

1.2 Timber-framed neighbours

Around a timber-framed building a roof leak does its damage quietly. Water follows a rafter or a wall plate and reaches the frame long before a stain shows inside, so wherever the roof meets old timbers we check them and put what we find in the survey. A failed flashing is cheaper to cure than a rotted plate, which is the reason to look early. Scaffold in the village street is licensed by West Sussex County Council under section 169 of the Highways Act 1980, with a minimum of 10 working days' notice, and your roofer can tell you who makes the application.

1.3 Who decides, in Findon

Findon lies inside the South Downs National Park, in the part where the National Park Authority handles planning applications itself, so planning questions go to the SDNPA, not to the district. Arun District Council keeps building control. We tell you which door to knock on at the survey, and we handle the Building Regulations notification when work is notifiable.

The old rectory is the village's best-known roof. Its house is flint and brick, roofed in Horsham stone, and its central part is said to date from 1584. Horsham stone is a sandstone split into thick slabs, and the slabs go on in diminishing courses, so the biggest, heaviest slabs go along the eaves and each course gets smaller as it climbs towards the ridge. It is not a roof you treat as ordinary tiling, and the first task is simply to see how it has been laid. Our Horsham stone roofing page explains how a stone roof is repaired or relaid.

3.1 Weight, and what a change of covering involves

Stone slabs are heavy, so a roof frame built for them may not suit a lighter covering without thought, and one built for something light may not carry stone at all. Planning Portal guidance draws a line at a replacement covering that is 15 per cent heavier or more, which brings building control into it, and it says that a structural engineer or surveyor should be consulted before work begins. Even below that line the frame has to be sound, and an old one is checked for sagging and for decay at the wall plates before anything heavier goes on it. With an old house, the sensible opening move is to keep the existing covering where repair is possible, and to put the sound slabs back if the roof has to come up.

3.2 A Grade I church, and where the wind goes

St John the Baptist's church is flint with stone dressings. It is an Anglican parish church in use, so the ecclesiastical exemption applies and roof works go through the faculty jurisdiction, though planning permission may still be required where the exterior changes. The same gap in the Downs that gives the village its character is a reminder about fixings. Manufacturers say a specification depends on geography, altitude and local wind exposure, so we weigh each roof against its own position and never apply a rule of thumb. A fixing that suits a sheltered valley floor may not suit an open gap on the Downs.

Whatever the building, the survey ends in a verdict you can check in the photographs: patch it, repair it or replace it, with the reason for each. If stone slabs have slipped because their pegs or nails have gone, that is a repair, and it should not be sold as a new roof. Our roof repairs page explains how smaller jobs are handled, and the price comes as one written total.