Roofs in a Wealden Clay village of tile works and old frames.
Chiddingfold sits on deep Wealden Clay, seven miles south of Godalming, with a conservation area at its heart. We study each roof on its own merits, then price in writing.
The 1911 Victoria County History records tile and brick works in the parish. That shows clay was made here, not what covers your house, so we identify your tiles at the survey and match them.
Clay tiles on a pitched roof
Timber framing runs through the village, from the Crown Inn's 14th-century king-post roof to farm buildings. A roof on an old frame earns a slow look at the timbers before anyone touches a tile.
Old timber roof structure
St Mary's church is of Bargate stone rubble, and Horsham slabs once covered most of its roofs before most were removed, leaving an edging at the eaves. Stone and slab details matter on older buildings here.
Stone slab edging at the eaves
Map of Chiddingfold and the neighbourhoods around it, with Crawley for reference.
Chiddingfold is a wooded village on Wealden Clay in the Surrey countryside, west of Crawley, with its own conservation area merged in 2007.
The Chiddingfold roof run-down
Three short chapters on the clay and woods around Chiddingfold, the old buildings that set its character, and the Waverley and Surrey rules that come into play once a repair grows.
Stage 01 · Setting
Chiddingfold grew on deep clay among woods, with tile and brick works of its own, and that setting shapes what its roofs put up with.
The Victoria County History of 1911 describes Chiddingfold's soil as Wealden Clay, 'very deep and tenacious in wet weather', in a parish that is well wooded and had tile and brick works. Those lines raise questions instead of settling them. Clay was fired into tiles and bricks nearby, yet a map cannot tell anyone whether the tiles over your kitchen came out of those kilns. We prefer evidence. Up on the roof we study the tile itself, its profile, thickness, colour and weathering, and report back in plain words.
It can. Trees close to a house shed leaves and needles into gutters and valleys, and shade keeps a slope damp for longer, which suits moss. None of that hurts a sound roof overnight. A gutter stuffed with leaves does overflow behind the fascia, though, and a valley choked with debris can push rain sideways under the tiles. For a house standing among trees, the gutter runs, valley linings and lowest courses of tiles come first on our list. Our gutters, soffits and fascias work covers clearing, realigning and replacing runs that have sagged under wet leaves.
A Chiddingfold survey checklist
Clay tiles carry a 60 year minimum life expectancy from the Building Research Establishment, a figure Marley repeats. It is a floor for the tile, not a promise about your roof, and for old hand-made peg tiles Building Conservation calls that 60 year figure 'clearly not a reliable guide'. A roofing materials guide gives natural slate 100 years or more when well maintained. Age on its own says little, and a roof of any age can be sound or tired. The tile body is seldom the first thing to go. The nail, the batten under it or the underlay beneath tend to give up sooner, and from the garden a perfectly good-looking slope can be sitting on soft timber. So we lift a few tiles in a sample area, look underneath and photograph what is there. When the covering is sound, the repair stays small. When battens are rotten across a whole slope, the pictures show it, and the written price weighs a strip and re-lay of that slope against patching. Our pitched roofing page explains how those repairs are done.
Stage 02 · Old buildings
Old roofs in Chiddingfold carry real history, from a 14th-century king-post roof to church slabs, and they call for a different pace of work.
Chiddingfold keeps buildings from several centuries side by side. The Crown Inn, opposite the church, still has a 14th-century king-post roof over what was once an open hall, with massive timber framing. St Mary's church is of Bargate stone rubble, and Horsham slabs once covered most of its roofs; most were removed, leaving an edging at the eaves. The chancel dates from about 1230, and the aisle and chapel roofs were renewed in 1870, in a restoration the Victoria County History calls 'of an exceptionally destructive character'. It is a fair warning that a heavy hand does lasting damage to an old roof.
Waverley gives the Chiddingfold Conservation Area as designated in 2007, when the Chiddingfold and Northbridge areas were merged into one. Inside such an area the council looks harder at alterations to the appearance of a roof. Swapping slipped tiles for matching ones is the simple case. A new covering, a new roof window or an altered chimney is where you speak to Waverley Borough Council's planning team first. A street name cannot tell you whether a house falls inside the boundary, so we consult Waverley's map for your address before pricing anything larger than a repair. Our answer on re-roofing in a conservation area goes through the questions to ask.
Words you may hear on an old roof
On an old roof, the slowest part of the job is the looking.
From the inside first. On a roof with old rafters we climb into the loft, because the timbers tell you more than the tiles do: where daylight shows, where staining has dried to a tide mark, where a rafter foot has gone soft against its wall plate. Only then do we go outside and shape the repair around what we found. Replacement tiles are chosen to sit well with the old ones in size, colour and texture, and we would sooner move sound tiles from a back slope to a visible front slope than set one bright new tile in the middle of an old roof. Lead, where an old chimney or stone wall needs it, is dressed to hug the masonry instead of being bolted on. If your house is listed, put your questions to Waverley's conservation team before any work begins, and we will hold the start date until you have the reply.
Stage 03 · Permissions
Planning and building control both sit with Waverley Borough Council, and scaffold on a public road needs a licence from Surrey County Council.
For a Chiddingfold house, Waverley decides planning questions and also runs its own building control pages, which offer next day inspection bookings for requests made by 4pm the day before. The highway belongs to Surrey County Council, so that is where scaffold licences go. Knowing who does what saves a great deal of ringing round once a repair turns into something larger.
A like-for-like repair rarely does. Planning comes into it when a roof's appearance is altered, and Building Regulations enter the picture when a job grows. The Planning Portal's test for leaving building control out of a re-roof is that under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof is affected. A replacement covering weighing 15 per cent or more extra also triggers approval, and moving from clay to something heavier deserves real thought. We work out which side of those lines your job falls on before a date is set. Keep any letter from the council with the roof's paperwork, since a purchaser's solicitor could request it years from now, and a repair done under a clear consent is easier to explain than one nobody can document. If a whole slope needs renewing, our roof replacement page shows how that job runs from first look to final check.
Before a bigger job starts
Only when part of the structure occupies the public highway. Surrey County Council asks for a 10 working day gap between applying and starting, and its licence costs £208 per 28 day period. Its page also asks for public liability cover of at least £10 million and a layout drawing. Ask who applies when you collect quotes; our own habit is to settle the paperwork alongside the scaffolding firm. See whether each quote you collect includes scaffolding and VAT. Scaffold standing wholly inside your own boundary falls outside the highway rules.
Roosting bats are legally protected, and the government's guidance lists roof repair and replacement as activity that may affect them. In a wooded parish with old timber roofs we watch for droppings, staining and gaps around the eaves, and if they appear we stop and talk through the options before going on. Begin with a clear garden photograph of whichever slope, valley or chimney bothers you, and add your postcode. With that we check Waverley's conservation map against your address before we price anything bigger than a repair.
We look at the tile, not the postcode. Tiles worth keeping are whole, firm on their nails and not flaking. The Building Research Establishment publishes a 60 year minimum life for clay, but old peg tiles do not follow that figure, so age settles nothing. We lift a sample, photograph the battens and nails beneath, and show you the evidence before anyone talks about replacing.
Waverley Borough Council's conservation area map settles it, not the village name. The area was designated in 2007, when Chiddingfold and Northbridge were merged into one. Check the map for your address, or ask Waverley's planning team, before changing the covering, roof windows or chimney. A like-for-like repair rarely raises the point, and we raise it at the survey either way.
It can, because leaves and needles gather faster under trees and shade keeps slopes damp. No fixed interval suits every house, since it depends on the trees and the roof. Check gutters after leaf fall, look for moss on shaded slopes, and tell us if water spills over at the same corner each time, because that points to a fault in the fall.
Surrey County Council wants your application 10 working days ahead of the start and charges £208 per 28 day period. It also asks for public liability cover of at least £10 million and a layout drawing. We plan the start around that wait. Scaffold that stays wholly inside your boundary needs no highway licence, which we confirm at the survey.
A clear picture of the tiles, valley or chimney that bothers you, plus your postcode, is all we need to fix a survey date.
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