Roofs in a flint and chalk village where the Downs open out.
Findon sits in a wind-gap of the South Downs on chalk, with flint walls, a Horsham stone rectory roof and two conservation areas. Each roof here gets its own survey and one written price.
The Victoria County History says most older buildings in the village are of flint or brick, with some rendering. Where a roof slope meets one of those walls, the flashing and the pointing around it get our closest look.
Tiled roof beside a brick wall
The rectory is flint and brick and roofed in Horsham stone, with a central part said to date from 1584. A roof like that is not a standard tile job, and a survey comes before any promise.
Old stone-slab roof on a house
Findon Conservation Area, designated in March 1986, is centred on The Square and the timber-framed Gun Inn. Nepcote Conservation Area, around the sheep-fair green, followed in March 2023. Near either, we check the boundary before pricing a change.
Village street with tiled roofs
Map of Findon and the neighbourhoods around it, with Crawley for reference.
Findon lies in the wind-gap through the South Downs, entirely on chalk, and is best known locally for its sheep fair and racehorse training.
Roof work in Findon, staged
Three short chapters on flint, brick and stone roofs, on a National Park with two conservation areas, and on what Arun and West Sussex expect for bigger jobs.
Stage 01 · Setting
Findon's older buildings are flint or brick, one has a Horsham stone roof, and the parish sits wholly on chalk.
The parish of Findon straddles the wind-gap in the South Downs and lies entirely on the chalk. It was known across the county for its sheep fair and for training racehorses. The Victoria County History records that most of the village's older buildings are of flint or brick, with some rendering, that its church, St John the Baptist, is flint with stone dressings, and that the rectory is flint and brick roofed in Horsham stone, its central part said to date from 1584. A village with that mix has roofs of very different ages sitting beside very different walls.
Where a Findon roof meets a wall
Because the junction is where water gets in. A tile slope is only as watertight as its edge, and a flint or rendered wall is an uneven thing to seal against. Lead is tucked into a joint and dressed over the tiles, and if the mortar around that joint has crumbled, the lead can sit loose however good it looks from below. We check the line from the ladder, press on the pointing and photograph anything that moves. Hairline cracks in render near the roofline are worth a note too, since rain can follow them in. Our lead work page shows what a flashing repair involves, and the photos come to you either way.
Stone slabs of that kind are no place to experiment. We say plainly at the survey whether a job is one we should price or one that needs a specialist stone-roof contractor, and a building that old also raises consent questions before any slab comes off. Where the property is a modest later house with ordinary tiles, the picture is simpler, and the survey tells you which you have. Either way you receive one written total price after we have looked, and nothing starts before you agree to it.
Rarely on its own. Sixty years is the figure usually quoted for both concrete tile (Marley, who add that it is not a guarantee) and clay (a Building Research Establishment minimum). A Findon roof that has lost some tiles may need those replaced and the ridge rebedded, and nothing more. When that is the right answer, the written price says so and says why.
Stage 02 · Consent
Findon lies inside the South Downs National Park, and its two conservation areas mean the planning authority matters before the roof changes.
Findon is one of the villages where a line on the map decides who you ask. The South Downs National Park Authority, and not Arun District Council, handles planning applications here, because this corner of the Park is what the Authority calls a recovered area. Arun keeps building control. A Findon re-roof can therefore touch two offices, and we tell you which one a given question belongs to before anyone picks up a phone.
Findon Conservation Area was designated in March 1986 and is centred on The Square, where the seventeenth-century timber-framed Gun Inn stands. Nepcote Conservation Area, around the sheep-fair green, was designated by the Park's Planning Committee on 9 March 2023, the first conservation area the Authority had designated itself. Both are worth checking on the council or Authority map if your house is near an edge, since the boundary line, not the postcode, settles it. Inside either, the straightforward route is to match the covering and details already there. The Nepcote appraisal records no Article 4 direction and only suggests that one might be considered. Ask the Authority whether any direction touches your road before assuming either way, because a direction can withdraw rights you would otherwise have.
Who decides what
Inside the Park, the people who decide a roof's appearance are not at the district council.
Rules inside a National Park are not the same as outside one, and they are easy to misread, especially for dormers and roof windows, so we point people to our post on planning permission for roof work and then to the Authority. Mending a roof so that it looks just as before seldom raises that question. If the house is listed, the Authority says routine upkeep and small repairs made in place, like for like, need no listed building consent.
Findon's parish church, listed Grade I, is a Church of England building, and works to it go through the Church's faculty system, so the diocese is the first call for the parish. We can set out a survey in a form that a churchwarden or parochial church council can pass on, with a single written price at the end of it.
Whichever office you ring, give your postcode and mention any listing, because both facts change who takes the question. Survey photos, sent with your consent, help a planning officer see the junction details on your roof.
Stage 03 · Permissions
Bigger Findon jobs involve Arun building control, and any scaffold on the road is licensed by West Sussex County Council.
Three public bodies can touch a bigger Findon job, each for its own reason: the National Park Authority for planning, Arun for building control, and the county council for the road. Knowing which is which saves a lot of ringing round, and the survey is where we sort it out. Planning, approval and the road are three separate questions with three separate answers, and you get all three in plain words before any date is fixed.
Arun runs its own building control service. The national test, as the Planning Portal gives it, is two questions: is under 25 per cent of the building envelope affected, and under 50 per cent of the roof? If both answers are yes, an application is normally not needed. Approval does come into it if a new covering would weigh 15 per cent or more beyond the old one, and the Portal recommends getting an engineer's or surveyor's view before a heavier covering replaces a lighter one. Where the survey recommends a whole new roof, our roof replacement page walks through the job.
Findon: who to ask, and when
A scaffold that stands on, or obstructs, a public highway is the county's business: West Sussex County Council licenses it. Its published terms are at least 10 working days between application and erection, £266 for one month, and an extra £52 to fast-track. They are silent on who submits the application, so we agree that with the scaffolder before a date is fixed. A frame erected entirely inside your boundary is outside the highway scheme, which matters if you have a long front garden.
The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 says nobody may intentionally take, damage or destroy the nest of a wild bird during its building or use. An occupied nest in the eaves, in a chimney or under a ridge tile means that corner waits, and we can often start on another slope. Bats are covered more strictly: GOV.UK treats them and their breeding and resting places as fully protected, and its guidance puts re-roofing and roof repairs on the list of works that can affect them. If we meet either, work pauses on that spot and you hear about it straight away, with the next step explained in plain words. Send your Findon postcode and say where the trouble sits, and the survey is booked.
Flint and render walls are uneven, so lead tucked into a joint can come loose once the mortar around it crumbles. The cure is sound pointing as well as new lead, and a repair that skips the pointing tends to fail at the same spot. At the survey we press on the joints and photograph anything that moves, so you can see whether a repair is enough or the whole line needs redoing.
Planning applications in this part of the South Downs National Park go to the National Park Authority, not Arun District Council, which keeps building control. Replacing slipped tiles with matching ones seldom raises the question. For any change of look, ask the Authority first. Our post on planning permission for roof work is a good place to start.
Yes, with a licence from West Sussex County Council, whose terms are 10 working days minimum from application to erection, and £266 for one month. The county's page is silent about the applicant, so we agree that with the scaffolder. Scaffolding kept entirely inside your boundary is outside the scheme, whatever the road outside, and the survey tells you which applies.
A roof of that kind needs a survey before any promise. The old rectory in Findon is roofed in Horsham stone, and houses of that age raise consent questions too. We say plainly whether the job suits us or a specialist stone-roof contractor, and the written total price follows after the survey, with photos of the slopes.
Send your Findon postcode and a photo of the flashing, ridge or slope giving you doubts, and we will book the survey.
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