Roofers in Sompting

Sompting's parish church of St Mary dates from the 11th century, and its tower carries a Rhenish helm, a pyramidal roof form found mainly in the Rhineland and very rare in Britain. Adur District Council's conservation area appraisal says so, and the Victoria County History adds that the church is faced with flint, with Caen stone dressings and a west tower topped by a short helm spire. The building is listed Grade I. Few villages of this size have a roof like it, and anyone who works on the village roofs works in its shadow. It also sets a standard. A roof form that rare survives only because generations of carers kept the weather out of it, and our own work is judged against that.

1.1 A roof shape that is not on the usual list

A pyramidal roof is not an ordinary pitched roof. Four faces rise to a single point, there are four hips instead of one ridge, and every junction is small, steep and hard to reach. The same rules of good roofing still apply: the lap of each course, the fixings that hold it, the lead at the junctions. What changes is access, because a ladder is rarely enough and the scaffold has to be designed around the form. On a village roof the equivalent is a turret, a tower cap or a pyramid-roofed porch, and we survey such features with the same slow patience, working from the lowest safe point upwards and photographing each hip and junction as we go.

1.2 Flint faces, stone dressings and lead

Flint walls offer no straight line for a flashing to follow, so the junction with a roof is worked by hand. Lead is trimmed along the face of the flint and tucked into a joint opened up for the purpose, then the pointing is made good over it. Stone dressings need care too, because a drip that falls on soft stone leaves a stain and, in time, a loss of face. We look for open joints, lifted lead and splashes down the wall, and we report each one with a photograph. Our lead roofing and leadwork page explains how sheets and thicknesses are chosen for each position.

1.3 Churches and the consent route

A listed church needs the right consent route before roof work starts, and which route applies depends on the church and its denomination. A church in regular worship use may come under its own denomination's process, whereas one that has closed generally returns to the ordinary listed building controls. Anyone responsible for a church or parish hall roof here should begin with the people who care for the building. We then supply the survey photographs and a written description of the work, which is usually what an adviser or committee needs to see first.

Sompting is unusual in sitting across a planning boundary. The appraisal says that since April 2011 the South Downs National Park Authority has been the local planning authority for the part of the conservation area north of the A27, while Adur District Council remains the planning authority for the village south of it. Building control is a separate matter and stays with Adur District Council. Before any application for a roof change, work out which side of the A27 your house is on, and ask the right authority.

3.1 The conservation area and Article 4

Adur District Council first designated the Sompting Conservation Area in March 1976, with minor boundary amendments in 1992, and adopted a fresh appraisal and management plan on 7 August 2024. The council's list of Article 4 Directions does not include a confirmed direction for the conservation area. The 2024 appraisal does recommend that the council consider one south of the A27 covering roof alterations, including coverings, rooflights and solar panels. A recommendation falls short of a direction, so nothing binding exists today, yet it is good reason to ask Adur District Council before changing a roof covering in the village.

3.2 Roof windows, dormers and re-covering

A conservation area, or the National Park, takes some roof changes outside the usual rules, and dormers are the clearest case. A homeowner north of the A27 who wants a loft room may find the answer is different from the neighbour's south of it, so it pays to confirm which side of the line you are on. Our guide to skylight planning permission explains it. For a plain re-covering, think about weight as well as appearance. Pick a tile that weighs 15 per cent or more above what it replaces, and the Planning Portal says building control approval is needed. A concrete tile laid over what was a plain clay roof is the classic way to get there, so the weight question is asked at the survey.

3.3 Scaffold licences and cost

West Sussex County Council licenses scaffolding on the highway. The council wants at least 10 working days' notice, so a village job is planned a fortnight ahead. The survey comes first, and after it you receive a single total price on paper. The ranges below are national typical figures to give a sense of scale, not our price, and the figures behind them are set out in the source line.