Roofs around St Nicholas church, Church Road and the old railway village.
Great Bookham has a Grade I church, Grade II houses on Church Road and a conservation area over part of the village. We read each roof against that backdrop, then give a written total.
The Church of St Nicholas is listed Grade I, and two Church Road entries, eight houses in all, carry Grade II. A listed roof is mended to match, so we record the covering and its details first and raise consent before a price is fixed.
Old tiled roof beside a church
Part of Great Bookham lies in the conservation area, so your road may or may not be covered. We help you find out which, through the council's planning team, before a re-roof or a change of covering is priced.
Village houses with tiled roofs
Bookham station opened in 1885 on the Leatherhead to Guildford line, and newer and older houses now stand together. A survey of your own roof tells us what you have, whatever the street looks like.
Terraced homes with pitched roofs
Map of Great Bookham and the neighbourhoods around it, with Crawley for reference.
The village lies two miles south-west of Leatherhead, with Bookham Common mid-parish and Ranmore Common on the downs to the south.
Great Bookham work notes
Three short chapters on listed roofs near the church, the mixed ages of Bookham homes, and the Mole Valley and Surrey doors a bigger job has to go through.
Stage 01 · Old buildings
St Nicholas church and eight Church Road houses carry listings, so on an old Bookham roof the first question is whether consent is needed.
Great Bookham's old centre gathers around the Church of St Nicholas, listed Grade I. The Victoria County History says the church appears in Domesday, and that the present nave may match the size of the 11th-century building and even hold some of its original stones. Church Road adds more listings: numbers 2, 4, 6 and 8, and numbers 10, 12, 14 and 18, are each Grade II. Part of the village also falls inside the Great Bookham conservation area. With all that in one place, a roof here can carry an obligation that a roof in a newer road never meets.
Listed building consent exists for work that alters the very qualities that earned a house its listing. Swapping a few slipped tiles for matching ones sits at the gentle end of that scale. Changing the covering, the ridge detail or the pitch sits at the other end. We never guess which side a job lands on. Instead we note what the roof is made of, photograph it, and propose that you ring Mole Valley District Council's planning team before anyone books a date. Their reply travels with the written price, so nobody is surprised later. For a Church Road house, the Historic England list entry gives the exact wording of the listing, and it is worth reading before you ring the council.
On a listed roof the consent question comes before the price, not after it.
On a listed or village-core roof
A church used for worship can come under its own denomination's consent system rather than listed building consent. That route runs through the church and its advisers, so a parish with a worry about a gutter or a ridge should start with them. What we can add is a clear picture of the covering, flashings and rainwater goods, with photographs, so the discussion starts from evidence.
A roof that has been mended more than once can hold several materials and several ways of fixing them. We begin at the eaves and climb: gutters and fascia, the first course of tiles, the main slopes, the hips (the sloping ridges at the corners), the ridge itself, the valleys (the troughs between two slopes), and finally every flashing around a chimney or against a wall. Our pitched roofing page covers the repair of the covering and everything under it, and chimney stacks and the lead around them get the same attention.
Stage 02 · Mixed ages
Bookham station opened in 1885, and homes of different ages now share streets, so neighbours cannot be assumed to have matching roofs.
The Victoria County History records that Bookham station opened in 1885 on the London and South Western line between Leatherhead and Guildford. In a village with a station of that age, homes from different decades can stand shoulder to shoulder. That is why we look before we guess. A pair of semis and a cottage a few doors along may have different coverings, different fixings and quite different histories of repair, and only the roof itself can tell us which is which.
That depends on the covering and on how well it has been looked after, and no table can promise a date. For concrete tiles Marley quotes around 60 years but calls that neither a guarantee nor a warranty. Marley also cites a Building Research Establishment minimum of 60 years for clay, though buildingconservation.com warns that number says little about handmade peg tiles. Often it is the parts around the tile that give out first: ridge and verge bedding, rusting nails, tired battens, and underlay where it dips into the gutter. These are repairs, and a repair is often the better buy than a new roof.
Words you will hear on a survey
They are the parts most likely to rely on mortar alone. Since the 2014 revision of BS 5534, Marley explains, mortar alone is not to be relied on for bedded ridges and hips, and every bedded tile or fitting should be mechanically fixed too. Clip-on and screw-fixed alternatives to mortar have their own British Standard, BS 8612, which tests those systems. When we rebed a ridge here, the fixings go in with the mortar. If a whole run is worn out, our dry ridge and dry verge page sets out what the alternative involves and how it changes the look of the roofline.
The loft deserves the same scrutiny as the slopes. Damp rising from the house can condense under a roof whose eaves gap has been plugged with insulation, and the first clue is often a dark stain on a batten, not a drip. We look from inside as well as outside and send you the pictures from both, so any choice between mending and replacing starts from fact.
Stage 03 · Permissions
Planning is Mole Valley's, building control sits with a three-council team, and the highway is Surrey's: three doors for one big job.
Most mends never reach a council desk. Paperwork enters the story when a repair grows into new slopes, when a different covering is on the table, or when the poles need road space.
Mole Valley belongs to the Southern Building Control Partnership, the shared Local Authority Building Control team it forms with Reigate and Banstead and Tandridge. The Planning Portal's national test keeps building control out of it while under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof are touched. Two other triggers sit beside that: a new tile adding 15 per cent or more to the load, and a material whose behaviour in a fire is markedly unlike the old one. On weight, the portal points owners to an engineer or surveyor before starting. On a Bookham house where a heavier tile is being considered, that check comes before anything is ordered. If whole slopes are coming off, that appears in the written price and we tell you whom to ask. Our roof replacement page shows what a complete new roof involves, and our post on planning permission for roof work covers the planning side, including what a conservation area can change.
Doors to knock on for a big job
Scaffold standing in a footway or lane needs a licence, and around Great Bookham Surrey County Council issues it. Surrey quotes £208 for every 28-day period and wants the application at least 10 working days before the date you are aiming for. The scaffolder and Crown settle that paperwork between them, so you are not left with forms, and the programme is built around the wait. A drive or back lawn with room avoids all of it, because land you own needs no highway licence. Whichever applies, we check at the survey that materials and waste have a clear walkway to the skip.
Under the tiles there may be tenants. Every bat species and its roost is protected by law, and government guidance on bats puts roof repair and roof replacement on its list of affected activities. Bat droppings in the roof space, or a soffit gap that looks used, would pause the work while the options are laid out for you. In the meantime, a picture of whichever slope worries you most, sent with your road name and postcode, gets things moving.
Church Road numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 18 are each listed Grade II. Look up the Historic England list entry for your own address. Because consent covers work affecting a listed building's character, put the question to Mole Valley District Council's planners before any work, repairs included. We photograph the roof so your question has evidence.
The national conservation area dataset shows that part of Great Bookham sits inside one, not the whole village. Ring Mole Valley District Council's planning team with your address and they will check the boundary line against your house for you. Matching tiles on a small mend is straightforward, whereas a different covering should go past the council first.
Mole Valley is served by the Southern Building Control Partnership (set up in 2017 and shared with Reigate and Banstead and Tandridge). If the survey finds that a big portion of the roof must be renewed, the written price flags it, so you can raise the matter with that team in good time, before a scaffolder is booked.
Only if it occupies the road or pavement. Surrey County Council asks for at least 10 working days' notice and charges £208 per 28-day period for a scaffold licence. Our scaffolder and we handle the application between us. Nothing is needed from the highway authority if the poles stand on your own ground, which we measure up on the survey.
Name your Bookham road and the corner of the roof giving trouble, add a picture if you have one, and we book the survey.
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