Roofers in Hammer

Hammer takes its name from an iron-mill known as Pophall, which worked from before 1573 until after 1730, according to the Victoria County History's account of Linchmere. The name outlived the mill. The same history says the parish's chief centre of population lies in the extreme north at Hammer, where there had been a good deal of building. That is a short phrase, but it fits what a surveyor expects to meet in a place like this: homes put up at different times, for different people, in different ways, with extensions and repairs added since.

1.1 Roofs of several periods side by side

Without a single building campaign behind it, a village has no standard roof, so we do not assume one. A tiled slope on one house may be recent, while the next door neighbour's covering has been on for generations and has been patched in between. Clues to age are plain once you know them: a ridge held by nothing but a bed of mortar is a sign of an older job, a flat-roofed extension with a bubbled surface may date from a different decade to the house, and battens that crumble when handled have done their time. We record each of these in the survey photographs, so the repair, patch or replace verdict rests on what is on your roof and not on a guess about the street.

1.2 Brick from the brickworks and from further afield

The Lynchmere appraisal prepared for the South Downs National Park Authority in December 2016 notes that Hammer Brickworks was located nearby, and that from the mid 19th century bricks could also be brought in from further afield. For a roofer that matters most at the chimney. A brick stack on an older house may have been built in one batch and repaired in another, and the pointing, the brick and the flaunching (the sloping mortar fillet round the foot of the pots) may all be of different ages. Our chimney repairs page covers the point at which a stack should come down and be rebuilt instead of repointed. If water is already showing on a ceiling below, roof repairs sets out how we trace it before quoting.

Where an extension meets an older wall, the weatherproofing is lead. Sheet lead is sold by code. Royston Lead's brochure lists Code 4 (1.80 mm) for soakers, flashings, valley gutters and dormers, and Code 5 (2.24 mm) for flashings, valleys, parapet gutters and dormers. A soaker is a folded lead piece that tucks beneath each course of tiles beside a wall or stack. Our lead roofing and leadwork page explains which weight goes where, and why the lead around a stack so often gets renewed during a chimney job.

Hammer's neighbour, Lynchmere, has a conservation area of its own, first designated by Chichester District Council and now looked after by the South Downs National Park Authority. Its character appraisal and management plan, published in December 2016, covers Lynchmere village and not Hammer. Hammer itself is outside the National Park, and Chichester District Council is its planning authority. The distinction is easy to blur because the two places share a parish, so it is worth separating what applies where. A reader who sees a conservation area mentioned in the next lane can fairly wonder whether it reaches their own roof, and the honest answer depends on a map, not on the name of the parish.

3.1 What the Lynchmere appraisal does and does not cover

It is a document about Lynchmere. Hammer's own streets are not drawn into that conservation area, and no conservation area is recorded at Hammer itself. Sentences you may read online about Lynchmere's roofs, tiles or boundary walls are therefore not statements about a house at Hammer. If a house is listed, listed building rules apply wherever it stands. For a house of any age, the council's planning team can tell you whether a conservation area, a listing or a direction affects your plans, and we recommend asking before work is priced. The Park authority's listed building pages say that regular maintenance and minor in-situ repairs done like for like need no listed building consent, which is useful to know before a small repair is put off for a season.

3.2 Who decides near the Park boundary

In the parts of the National Park that lie in Chichester district, the district council acts for the Park authority on applications, while building control stays with the district council wherever the Park boundary falls. A house a short distance from Hammer might therefore lie inside the Park and fall under stricter planning rules than its neighbour. Moving from district rules to Park rules changes whom you write to, not the standard of the work. Wherever a house stands, ridges, verges and flashings are done properly, and the survey tells you what yours needs. If you are considering a roof window, our guide to skylight planning permission explains what to check first.