Roofers in Wickham

Wickham's houses are built round a large market place, and the village history records several good 18th-century houses among them. Roger de Scures was granted a market and fair in his manor of Wickham in 1268, which tells you the square is far older than any house now standing on it. What matters to a roofer is the arrangement. Buildings set round an open space tend to sit close together, often sharing walls and gutters, with one roof running straight into the next. A fault on one house can become a neighbour's problem too, and a repair on one may need a conversation across the fence before a ladder goes up. Courtesy and a clear explanation do as much for these jobs as good tools.

1.1 Where neighbours' roofs touch

When two houses share a wall, their roofs meet at an abutment, a junction sealed with lead flashing or a stepped run of lead tabs let into the brickwork. These joints are the usual route for water in an adjoining terrace, and mending them properly means working to the boundary between two owners. We photograph the joint from both sides when access allows, so the owner next door can see what is being done and why. Our lead roofing and leadwork page describes how we dress lead at joints like these. A lead job is only as good as the wall it is tucked into, so loose pointing gets raked out and made good first. Water that enters at an abutment often travels along a rafter before it shows, which means the stain on a bedroom ceiling can sit some distance from the real fault. Tracing it takes patience and a torch in the loft. The same goes for a gutter that serves two roofs: if a shared gutter or downpipe is failing, agreeing who arranges access is far easier when you can show the neighbour a clear picture of the problem.

1.2 Stacks that stand on a shared wall

An older house round a square will often have its chimney stack on the wall it shares with the next one. Mending the stack above the roof is one job: repointing, rebuilding the top courses, renewing the flaunching, the mortar cap sloped around the pots to shed water, and replacing the flashings. Removing a chimney breast inside is quite another, because it always needs Building Regulations approval, and one on a party wall means serving the neighbour a party wall notice. Our chimney repairs page sets out which jobs sit on which side of that line. Whatever is planned, we tell you plainly what the survey shows before you commit to anything.

The church of St Nicholas underwent what the county history calls a severe restoration in 1862 and 1863, yet it keeps some ancient features. It is a Grade II* listed building, first listed on 6 March 1967. A church shaped by Victorian restoration shows how old buildings really age: layers of work from different centuries, each repair done to the standard and taste of its day, so later repairers must read what came before them. Houses in the village carry the same history on a smaller scale, and their roofs have often been mended in several styles by several hands. Our first task on such a roof is to work out which layer we are looking at. A house near the church may show a Victorian repair beside an older one: different tile sizes, a change in the line of the nails, an odd patch of ridge. These clues help us judge whether a roof can be patched or has reached the point where only a full re-cover will hold, and we describe the evidence in the verdict rather than asking you to take our word.

3.1 The consent route for a parish church

St Nicholas belongs to the Church of England as a parish church, so while worship continues there the ecclesiastical exemption applies and works are decided through the faculty jurisdiction, not by the council. The exemption leaves planning permission untouched where development alters the exterior. Roofing a church of this standing belongs to the parish and its professional advisers. We mention it because the neighbouring houses and outbuildings fall under the ordinary rules, and owners sometimes assume the church's procedures apply to them. They do not.

3.2 Asking Winchester the right question

Wickham has a conservation area, which Winchester City Council describes in a technical assessment dated November 2005. Putting back the same covering in the same pattern is generally outside planning control, but in a conservation area or on a listed house it pays to ask first, and Winchester City Council is the authority to ask. Building control is a separate test. The Planning Portal sets it at affecting less than 25 per cent of the building envelope and less than 50 per cent of the roof, and the council's team or a registered building control approver can say how that applies to your job. If it does apply, we explain the process and handle the notification.