Roofers in Fishbourne

Fishbourne grew along the road between Chichester and Portsmouth, and most of its people are still grouped beside it. The village was once called East Fishbourne and later New Fishbourne. Chichester District Council's character appraisal for the conservation area, written in 2012, names flint and lime as important local building materials. It lists flint, red brick and clay roof tiles among the area's key characteristics. For a roofer that is a practical description, because it says what a roof here has to sit beside: a clay-tiled slope butting a flint gable, a brick stack rising through the ridge, a boundary wall that the guttering has to clear. Each of those junctions is a place where water finds a way in if the detail is lazy.

1.1 Clay tile against flint and brick

The ridge caps the very top of the roof, and the verge is the slanting edge of the roof beside a gable wall. Both take the full force of the weather, and on an older roof both are often held by a bed of mortar and little else. Since the 2014 revision of BS 5534, mortar on its own no longer counts as enough for ridge and hip tiles (hips are the slanting corners of a hipped roof), so they are mechanically fixed as well. When we survey a Fishbourne roof we walk along those lines first, photograph any capping that rocks or any gap at a verge, and send the pictures with the written quote. Clay plain tiles are small, so a slope of them has plenty of joints to check, and faults turn up at the edges more often than in the middle of the slope.

1.2 Flashings where roof meets stone

Flashing is the lead sheet that keeps a roof watertight at a wall or chimney. Against flint, which is uneven by nature, the lead must be dressed tight to the wall and pushed into a raked-out joint, not smeared over with a sealant that peels within a season or two. Our lead roofing and leadwork page explains how sheet lead is chosen and fitted. Stacks need the same attention. A brick chimney that has stood beside the main road for generations may want its pointing renewed before the lead is worth touching, and our chimney repairs page sets out how we judge that. Where the fault is a slipped tile or a split flashing, the smaller job is the right one to quote.

The water at the head of the Fishbourne Channel is the reason the village looks as it does. A tide mill built in the 1790s was abandoned in the late 1830s, Fishbourne Mill was built early in the 17th century and ground on until 1917, and the Roman palace lies beside the conservation area. Most of the conservation area south of the A259 lies within the Chichester Harbour National Landscape, which carried the older title of Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty after its designation on 4 February 1964, until the renaming in 2023. For a homeowner the designation matters when a roof is being altered and not just repaired, so ask the council before altering a roof's shape or putting a window into it. Repairs that put back what was there are a different matter, and they make up the bulk of what a village roof needs. A reroofed slope with a tidy ridge, firm verges and gutters that run clear does more for a house than any amount of cosmetic work, and that is the standard we work to on every roof near the channel.

3.1 Roofs close to open water

Roofs near a harbour take the weather: gales, driving rain and the occasional sea mist. That does not mean every roof here is failing. It means the gutters, the downpipes and the lower courses of tiles deserve a look after a hard winter, because overflowing water is what stains the wall below and rots a fascia (the timber board behind the gutter) long before the roof covering gives up. Shaded roofs under trees can gather moss. Cleaning it off is sometimes all that is needed, and when it is not, photographs of the evidence for a repair or a relay reach you before you decide.

3.2 After a gale

If you think the wind has shifted tiles, look from the ground or from a window, and keep off the roof. Water coming in gets stopped first, with a temporary repair, and the permanent job follows once the roof has dried and been surveyed. Tell your insurer before you arrange anything, photograph the damage and keep every receipt for the temporary work. Bats and nesting birds are protected, so if you see either in a roof space, tell us before work starts. If you are weighing a roof window, our guide to skylight planning permission explains what to ask the council.