Roofers in Sidlesham

Chichester District Council's appraisal of the Sidlesham Church Conservation Area says thatch covers many of its roofs, and that local red clay provided the bricks and the roof tiles, with flint cobbles for the walling. Put together, that gives a roofscape of red tile, flint and stone walls and thatched eaves. St Mary's itself is listed Grade I and has clay-tiled pitched roofs. A pitched roof is one with two or more sloping faces, as opposed to a flat one. The tiles up there are not an anonymous product. They are local clay, and the sensible aim on any neighbouring repair is to match them in colour and in texture.

1.2 Matching red clay and the consent question

Replacement clay tiles are not all the same colour. A batch that looks right on the pallet can look flat or too orange beside weathered neighbours, which is why we hold a tile against the roof in daylight before ordering. Under the tiles sit battens, the thin timbers each course hangs from, and on an old roof we check them as carefully as the tiles themselves. A listed house falls under the 1990 listed buildings legislation, which asks for consent before anything is done that would change how the building looks and feels. In a conservation area, put the question to Chichester District Council's planning officers before swapping in a different material. A church used for regular Anglican worship follows the faculty route instead, and the parish takes that forward.

In 1935 the Land Settlement Association bought Keynor Farm and other land in the parish to set up smallholdings with greenhouses and piggeries. Holdings like those leave a scatter of outbuildings, sheds and later extensions, and some may since have been put to use as stores, workshops or garages. They share a sort of problem: a roof built for a single purpose, repaired in a hurry and now carrying something more valuable than animals. Surveys of buildings like this start with what the roof is made of, because that decides how it can be worked on.

3.1 Fibre cement and old farm roofs

The HSE's rule of thumb is simple: if a building dates from before 2000, or was refurbished before then, treat it as containing asbestos until someone has checked. Removing asbestos cement sheets in one piece, with care, counts as non-licensed work. If the material is badly damaged or breaks up, the job turns into notifiable non-licensed work. Fibre cement roofing is always fragile, so no one should walk on it. The waste goes in a double-wrapped, labelled load, and a contractor completes the consignment note as the producer. We raise all this at the survey, before a quote is written. If the building is a garage, our garage roof replacement page explains the options.

3.2 Felt, sheet and flat outbuilding roofs

A shed, workshop or garage roof from those years is often felt over boards. Less puts torch-on felt at 10 to 20 years, with a good job reaching 20 and a poor one failing sooner. A worn felt can sometimes be patched, but where the boards beneath have softened, new boards and a fresh covering set to a drainage fall make the sounder repair. BS 6229:2025 keeps a minimum finished fall of 1:80.

3.3 Open ground beside Pagham Harbour

Pagham Harbour lies close by, and its reclamation in 1876 was what put the tide mill out of action. Near open water a roof meets gales and driving rain with very little in the way. The ridge, the verges and the eaves are where we look first, because a fixing that was adequate in a sheltered spot may not be in an exposed one. Marley flags a risk of heavy uplift on the windward face where the pitch is below 30 degrees. Photographs of your own roof back up our verdict on whether it needs refixing, repairing or replacing.