Roofers in Fittleworth

The older parts of Fittleworth, part of Bedham Lane and most of Lower Street down to the river lie inside a conservation area, and the parish has two more at Coates and Little Bognor. The village sits on the River Rother among the sandstone hills of its valley, and the Neighbourhood Plan records that some homes are built from sandstone and ironstone quarried in the parish and nearby, while local wood supplied the timber-framed village buildings. The composer Sir Edward Elgar rented Brinkwells, a cottage in Bedham Lane, in 1917 and wrote most of his Cello Concerto there. Lanes like that one are the setting for most of the roof questions we get in this part of the Rother valley, because old walls and old roofs meet at awkward angles. A roof that looked fine in summer can show its faults after the first long wet spell, and a stain on a ceiling is usually the end of a journey that began on the slope or at the chimney. We follow that journey back from the ceiling to the roof before we recommend anything.

1.1 Stone walls and lead where they meet the tiles

A stone wall is thick, irregular and often soft at the joints. Where a roof slope ends against one, the water has to be carried out over the tiles by a flashing, which is a ribbon of lead tucked into the stonework and bent down across the top edge of the covering. A flashing that has pulled out of a worn joint is among the most frequent causes of a damp patch beside a chimney or on an upper wall. We rake out the joint (cut a groove in the mortar), fit new lead, wedge it and re-point it. Our lead roofing and leadwork page explains the lead weights and laps behind that job.

1.2 Timber frames and roofs that have moved

An old timber frame moves with the seasons and settles over the centuries, so the roof above it picks up every dip and lean. A tiled slope that ripples is not always failing. Sometimes the rafters have simply taken their set. What matters is whether the battens (the thin timber laths that each tile hooks onto) are sound and whether the tiles still lap each other properly. We photograph both, and say which of three outcomes fits: a repair that holds, a patch that buys a winter or two, or a replacement that is due. Seeing the same defect on a neighbour's roof proves nothing about yours, so each house gets its own photographs. Our pitched roofing page describes how an old slope is stripped, re-battened and recovered with the sound tiles reused where we can.

Fittleworth's parish has 89 listed buildings, two of them Grade I: St Mary the Virgin in the village itself and St Agatha at Coates. Fittleworth Bridge is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. That is a heavy concentration of protected buildings for a village of this size, and it means a roof question here often starts with a document rather than a ladder. That is not an obstacle to repairs. It is a reason to be organised about them, with photographs, a note of what each tile and slate is made of, and a clear idea of which work is repair and which is alteration. We read the list entry, find out which of the three conservation areas the house sits in, and work out who decides, before a price is written.

3.1 Who decides, and the Coates direction

Fittleworth lies inside the South Downs National Park. Planning here is handled by Chichester District Council on the Park Authority's behalf, and building control stays with the district council. The Park Authority's list includes an Article 4 direction for land at Coates, Fittleworth. Before any work at Coates, ask the planning team what it covers, because an Article 4 direction can withdraw rights that would normally apply. It is specific to that land and not a village-wide rule. Our guide to skylight planning permission is the place to start if you are thinking about a roof window in any of the three areas.

3.2 Listed houses, churches and the bridge

A listed house can have its roof maintained without consent when the repair is minor and like for like, as the Park Authority puts it, but an alteration that changes how the building looks or what it is made of needs listed building consent. St Mary the Virgin is a Church of England church, so its roof works go through the faculty system, with planning permission still needed for exterior development. A scheduled monument such as the bridge has its own consent from the Secretary of State. None of this is for us to decide on your behalf, but we keep the photographs and the written record a planning officer would ask for, so your application starts from clear evidence. If the answer is that the house needs nothing more than a like-for-like repair, you will have that in writing, and the job can be booked without waiting on anyone else.