Roofers in Hindhead

Hindhead stands on the heaths west of Witley. An old account describes how the heath of Witley Common joins Thursley Common and the waste land running up to Hindhead, all of it part of the manor of Witley. In 1905 the manorial rights over part of that waste, Hindhead included, were bought by trustees for the Commons Preservation Society. The Hampshire county history of 1908 adds views from Headley across to Hindhead and its two neighbours, the Devil's Jumps and the Devil's Punch Bowl. The A3 now runs beneath the area through the Hindhead Tunnel, opened in July 2011, and the old road round the Devil's Punch Bowl was closed. For a roofer the lesson is about openness. A house at the edge of common land has few buildings beside it to take the wind, and what a gale does to a roof depends heavily on that. A terrace in a sheltered street and a detached house facing open ground can wear the same tiles and age very differently.

1.1 Why position decides the fixings

Tile and slate manufacturers are clear that a fixing specification is set by the site: its location, its height above sea level and the wind it meets. There is no single answer for the whole village. A house on a rise at the heath's edge deserves a harder look at its ridge, hips and verges than one tucked behind neighbours. The verge is the roof's side edge, above a gable wall, and it is the first place a gust gets under a tile. Since BS 5534 was revised in 2014, a bed of mortar has stopped being the sole fixing for ridge and hip tiles, and each one is held mechanically too. Older roofs built before that change often rely on mortar alone, and those are the ones we look at hardest. BS 8612 covers the dry-fixed alternative, in which a ridge system is clipped on and no mortar is used at all.

1.2 What we check after a blow

When gales have passed, we look for tiles that have lifted or slid at the edges, ridge capping that has shifted, and flashings, the folded metal that bridges the joint between a slope and a wall, that have peeled back. A slipped tile near the edge of a roof is rarely a one-off. It usually means the clips or nails along that course have loosened. Our pitched roofing page explains when a loose area can be refixed and when a whole slope has reached the point where a new covering is the sounder choice. Each loose area is pictured and the pictures travel with the quote. If water has already got in, we also look at the timbers and the underlay below the damaged spot, since a roof that has been wet for a season can need more than a refix.

The Church of St Alban in Hindhead is a Grade II listed building, first listed on 19 September 1977. The United Reformed Church, Hall and Manse also hold a Grade II entry, number 1244608, from the same date. A manse is a minister's house, so that entry takes in a place of worship, a meeting hall and a home. Roof work on any of them begins with the question of who has to consent, and the answer differs between a church in use, a hall and a house. Settling that question first saves a stalled job later, because a scaffold standing on a drive while the consent is argued over is the most expensive way to find out.

3.1 Which route applies to which building

The ecclesiastical exemption lets some denominations handle works to churches in active use through their own approval procedures, in place of listed building consent. For a United Reformed church it applies only if the building is held on the specified trusts. Churches of other faiths and denominations outside the exemption need listed building consent from the council, and so does a church no longer used for worship. A planning application is a separate matter and is the one that covers visible changes outside. We cannot decide which category a given building falls into. Waverley Borough Council, or the denomination's own office, can say. The same point holds for the church hall and the manse: each has its own use, and a hall used for community events or a house lived in by a minister does not necessarily follow the same path as the nave. For a repair to the tiles or slates over a listed hall, the usual question is whether the work matches what is there or changes how the building looks from outside.

3.2 What this means for a neighbour's roof

You may not own a church, but a listed neighbour affects the street. If your house shares a boundary or a party wall with a listed building, work to a shared chimney or a joint between two roofs may call for a conversation with its owner before the scaffold goes up. Where a house is itself listed, like-for-like work, slate for slate and tile for tile, is the safe path, while a change of material or profile needs consent first. The list entry is read word by word before we price anything. For roof windows in any sensitive setting, read our skylight planning permission guide before you commit to a design.