Roofers in Upper Beeding

The Victoria County History places Upper Beeding on both sides of the River Adur, about 4 miles from its mouth at Shoreham, with the south of the parish on the chalk of the South Downs. The same history says building materials in the village, as elsewhere in the parish, are flint, brick and timber, with roof coverings of tile, thatch or Horsham stone. That is a short list, and every item on it is a different trade. A roofer here should expect a mixture of tile, thatch and stone on the older houses, and plenty of roofs that have been mended in whatever material was to hand.

1.1 Three coverings in the record

Tile is the covering most roofers handle every week, and it is laid on battens (the thin timber laths each course hooks over) above an underlay. Thatching belongs to specialist thatchers, and our part is everything around it: the lead on the chimney, the flashings where a thatched roof meets a tiled extension, and the gutters on the outbuildings beside it. Stone is the third covering and the one that most needs a person who knows the material, because slabs cannot be replaced from a builders' merchant's shelf.

1.2 Horsham stone and diminishing courses

Horsham stone is laid in slabs graded by size, larger at the eaves and smaller towards the ridge, an arrangement known as diminishing courses. Where slabs have slipped or a valley has let go, the usual first aim is to lift the sound pieces and relay them in their courses, topping up with matched stone, rather than strip the whole slope. Our Horsham stone roofing page walks through how stone roofs are surveyed, mended and relaid, and what the survey records before a quote is written. If you are unsure what covers your roof, send us a photograph of the slope and we will say whether it looks like stone, tile or something else.

1.3 Flint walls and roof edges

Flint cottages have thick walls with uneven faces, so a roof edge or a flashing has to be fitted to a surface that is not flat. The verge, where the last tiles overhang a gable wall, may rest on masonry that has moved over the centuries. We look at the wall as well as the roof before quoting. Valerie Manor, formerly New House, is built of flint and brick with 1668 above a ground-floor fireplace, and a house of that age deserves a repair that respects its fabric, reusing the old covering wherever it is still sound.

Horsham District Council publishes maps and character statements for two conservation areas in the village, Upper Beeding High Street and Upper Beeding Hyde Street. What matters in practice is whether your own house falls inside one. Put your address to the council's planners before you change a street-facing roof, and file their reply with the survey photographs. A change of tile colour or profile on a street-facing slope is the kind of thing to raise with them first. On a frontage slope in either area we match the existing tile colour and profile where the council expects it, and the quote says how that choice affects the price.

3.1 Estates from the 1920s to the 1970s

The Victoria County History records that the eastern end of the High Street was built up in the 1920s and 1930s, that a council estate had been built by 1957, and that building east of Hyde Street continued on a large scale into the 1970s. Those dates matter because the age of a house hints at the age of the parts of its roof. A 1930s house may still have its original battens and underlay, while a 1970s house may have a flat-roofed garage or porch from the same decade. Two houses built forty years apart need different questions asked of them, and the survey asks the right ones for each.

3.3 Garages, porches and older sheets

The HSE tells owners to presume asbestos in any building from before 2000, or refurbished before it, until a check says otherwise. Cement roof sheets that have weathered yet remain intact can be lifted off with care under non-licensed rules, whereas smashed sheets turn the job into notifiable work, and any asbestos waste travels under its own consignment note. If we meet sheets we suspect, we stop, say so in the survey, and explain the proper order of work before anyone lifts a tool. The HSE also warns that asbestos cement roofs are always fragile, so nobody steps onto a garage roof of that kind without boards spread across it.