Roofs on streets that grew around Earlswood Common and the railway.
Earlswood filled in after the Brighton line arrived in 1841, so one street can hold roofs from several decades. We survey each roof, share photos and quote one total in writing.
The Victoria County History says the Brighton line of 1841 reached Earlswood early and its population soon rose. Houses built over many decades differ under the tiles, and we judge each roof by what is actually up there.
Terraced tile roofs and chimneys
Earlswood Common was partly enclosed in 1886 as a public park. Any house that faces open ground meets the wind head on, so we look hard at ridges, verges and the first course of tiles.
Ridge and verge on a tiled roof
10 Hooley Lane is listed Grade II. Altering a listed house's character calls for consent first, so we look up a house's status before pricing it. Our answer on re-roofing a listed building explains the steps.
Old brick house with a tiled roof
Map of Earlswood and the neighbourhoods around it, with Crawley for reference.
Earlswood is the southern district of Redhill, around Earlswood Common, on the Brighton line towards Horley.
How an Earlswood job runs
Three short chapters on how Earlswood grew, how listed houses are handled, and the Surrey paperwork that starts to count on larger work.
Stage 01 · Background
Earlswood grew in stages after 1841, and a roof built in one stage can sit beside a roof from another.
Earlswood is the southern district of Redhill, set around Earlswood Common, and its story is one of arrivals. The Victoria County History records that Earlswood was among the parts of Reigate parish immediately affected by the Brighton line of 1841, after which its population soon increased. The Earlswood Asylum followed in 1847, founded on the common itself. Building here did not happen in a single burst, and that matters when you are looking at a roof.
It can. When houses arrive over many years, the covering, the way the ridge is held, the underlay and the lead around chimneys can all differ from one roof to the next, even when two fronts look alike from the pavement. So we never walk up to an Earlswood roof with a ready-made guess. We climb up, look at what is actually there and photograph it. You receive those pictures alongside the written price, and they show the same loose tile, the same split flashing or the same bare patch of batten that we saw. Where earlier owners have patched a roof, the repairs show up side by side, and we note each one so the new work sits properly beside it.
First climb on an Earlswood roof
Published figures give a sense of scale and nothing more. Marley puts concrete tiles at around 60 years and says that is not a guarantee or warranty. Clay tiles get a 60-year floor from the Building Research Establishment. Well-kept slate, on CoRC's figures, can pass 100 years, and lead flashing can last over 80 years. A roof older than those numbers is not automatically finished, and a younger one can still need work if a ridge, a valley or a gutter has failed. The valley is the internal angle where two slopes meet and send water down together, and it is one of the busiest spots on any roof. A cracked valley can leave a stain on a bedroom ceiling that is nowhere near the tile that caused it.
Age is a reason to look closely. The condition of the covering is what separates a patch from a replacement, and where a repair will hold we recommend it and quote only that. If you want the detail on tiles, battens and underlay, our pitched roofing page sets out how we repair each part.
Stage 02 · Permissions
A listing changes what you may do to a roof, so the first question on an older Earlswood house is whether it has one.
Historic England's National Heritage List records 10 Hooley Lane as Grade II listed, first listed on 31 March 1977, under list entry 1029084. We mention it because it shows what an Earlswood owner can run into: a roof that looks like any other may belong to a house with a protected status, and the status travels with the address.
No, but it changes the route. Section 7 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 bars any works that would alter a listed building's character unless they are authorised. That authorisation is listed building consent. Reigate and Banstead Borough Council is the planning authority here, and its planners can say whether a given repair needs consent. Do that before anyone books a date, because a covering swapped for a different one, or a ridge changed from mortar to something else, can be exactly the kind of change that counts.
Words on a heritage check
Reigate and Banstead's Redstone Hill, St Johns and Linkfield Street conservation areas all lie within a kilometre of Earlswood, and the borough's planners can confirm whether a single address falls inside one. On an unlisted house, mending the roof with matching tiles fixed in the old pattern keeps things straightforward. Our survey records the tile profile and colour so any replacement matches the old tiles as closely as the market allows. A house can still be listed without sitting in a conservation area, so the heritage list is worth a look for any older address.
Lead is the other thing to look at on a house of any age. Flashings at a chimney or a party wall are where water gets in once the lead lifts or splits, and a short run of new lead often does more good than any amount of sealant. The survey photos lay out what we find, and if the house turns out to be listed, or you cannot tell, we help you put the right question to the council. Written evidence of the roof's condition also helps if you later sell, because a buyer's surveyor may ask about it. For chimney stacks that have been rebuilt or repointed more than once, our chimney repairs page explains how we check the flashing and flaunching (the mortar bed round the pots) before we price.
Check a house's status first, because consent comes before the scaffold, not after it.
Stage 03 · Rules
Earlswood sits under Surrey County Council for highways and a shared team for building control, and both can matter on a re-roof.
Mending a roof as it stands rarely needs paperwork. A full re-roof, a heavier covering or scaffold standing on the road is another matter, and Earlswood has its own set of bodies to deal with.
Reigate and Banstead Borough Council hands its building control work to the Southern Building Control Partnership, a single team that also serves Mole Valley and Tandridge. The Planning Portal sets the bar at under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof; stay below both and building control approval is not normally needed. It adds that approval is required where a new covering would make the roof covering heavier by 15 per cent or more, or would act differently if there were a fire. Swapping one type of covering for another can trip that weight test, which is one reason like for like is the simpler road. Should the survey point to stripping a full slope or beyond, we raise it with building control before we agree a start date, and our roof replacement page explains each stage of a complete strip and recover.
Checks for larger Earlswood work
Under Surrey County Council's rules, poles on a public road or pavement need a licence, applied for 10 working days or more before the frame is wanted. Its fee is £208 for each 28 day period. Paperwork for it is settled between our scaffolder and us, so you are not left chasing it, and we pick the start date around the notice. Where every pole can stand inside your boundary, on an Earlswood drive or back garden, the highway licence falls away, and where there is space we use it. Either way, we plan a clear path beside the house for materials and rubbish, and each day we say what is happening.
GOV.UK guidance gives all bats full legal protection, roosts included, and warns that mending or renewing a roof can harm them. Bat droppings in the loft, dark marks round a gap under the tiles or an opening that looks in use all halt that section, and we then talk you through the options. Wild birds are covered as well while a nest is in use, so a ridge repair can sometimes have to wait for the nest to finish.
A good first step is a photograph of the ridge, valley or chimney flashing that worries you, taken from the garden and sent with your postcode. We read it before we visit, so the survey goes straight to the part that matters.
It depends on the covering and how widespread the damage is, not on the postcode. Houses here went up over many decades, so a repair that suits one slope may not suit the next. We survey, photograph the problem and say plainly whether some tiles, the ridge or a full slope is the sensible job.
No. A listing attaches to a particular building, so the Grade II status of 10 Hooley Lane governs that house and not its neighbours. Three conservation areas, Redstone Hill, St Johns and Linkfield Street, do lie within a kilometre of Earlswood, so check your street against them. If you cannot tell whether your own house is listed, ask Reigate and Banstead Borough Council's planning team, and pass their answer on before we fix a start date.
Private building control existed before 2024, and since 6 April 2024 the firms doing it are called registered building control approvers. Locally, the Southern Building Control Partnership is the council's own team. Ask which route your job needs once the survey shows how much of the roof is changing, and tell whichever body you choose the planned start date.
On the October 2026 table in Checkatrade's roof replacement guide, a three-bedroom semi comes to around £12,000 as a UK-wide figure, and nothing more local than that. Your price turns on access, the roof's area, the covering and what the survey finds, and it reaches you as one written total once the survey is done, so check any quote you compare says whether it includes VAT and scaffolding.
Photograph the ridge, valley or flashing that worries you, add your Earlswood postcode and send both, and we will read them before the survey.
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