Roofs on plots sold off the Ifold House estate from 1931.
Ifold grew out of the Ifold House estate, with plots sold from 1931 and first built as weekend retreats. Each roof gets its own survey, photos and one written price.
The estate was broken into building plots and sold off one at a time, finishing by the 1950s. Neighbouring houses can have different histories, so each roof is checked by itself instead of assumed from the one next door.
Tiled houses on a quiet lane
The first dwellings were basic weekend and holiday retreats with no mains services. A building lived in all year may have been extended since, so we look hard at every place where old and new roof meet.
Roof slopes meeting at a join
Roads inside the estate are officially footpaths or bridleways. That bears on where a lorry, a skip and a scaffold can stand, so access gets planned at the survey and explained before work begins.
Narrow lane beside a tiled house
Map of Ifold and the neighbourhoods around it, with Crawley for reference.
Ifold lies in Plaistow parish on the West Sussex side of the Surrey border, a village of about 1,200 people at the 2021 Census.
Notes on Ifold roofs
Three short chapters on how the plots came about, how a roof is reached from a road that counts as a footpath, and which Chichester rules bite on bigger jobs.
Stage 01 · Background
Ifold was sold in plots, not built to one plan, so the roof over your head has its own history and gets its own survey.
Ifold never grew from a village green or a single builder's plan. It came out of the estate of Ifold House, built in the early 1800s with over 315 acres of land. The parish council's history page records that plots on the estate were sold off from 1931, that the house itself was pulled down in 1936, and that every plot had gone by the 1950s. That sale history sets the tone for our visits. Since the plots went to separate buyers over two decades, we never assume one Ifold roof from the house next to it.
The same history says the first owners put up basic dwellings, used as weekend or holiday retreats, and that none had mains services. Some of those buildings may have been altered or extended since. A roof that has grown in more than one go can carry two or three coverings, with joins between them that deserve a close look, and a porch or lean-to roof tacked on to an older wall is a classic spot for water to creep in. We trace each join from inside the loft and then again from outside, because a stain on a ceiling is often a few feet away from the gap that let the water in.
Ahead of a re-roof
Age alone does not settle it. Marley's published figure for concrete tiles is around 60 years, with the reminder that the number is no warranty, and the minimum expected life it cites for clay, from the Building Research Establishment, is 60 years. Neither figure tells you what your own tiles have been through since they went on, or whether anyone has checked them lately. The real test is the condition of the covering, the battens beneath it and the nails or clips holding it down. When a handful of tiles have shifted, a repair is the sensible spend. When the battens are soft and the fixings have failed across a whole slope, patching stops making sense, and we show you the evidence in photos taken on your own roof so the choice between mending and replacing rests on what is really up there.
Our pitched roofing page covers tile, batten and underlay repair as well as full re-covers, and it explains what we look for before suggesting either.
Stage 02 · Access
Roads inside the Ifold Estate are classed as footpaths or bridleways, so where the scaffold, skip and lorry go needs early thought.
On many jobs, getting materials to the house takes as much effort as fitting them. The history page for Ifold says the roads within the estate are officially classified as footpaths or bridleways. For a roofer that raises ordinary practical questions. Can a flatbed with a pallet of tiles get down the lane? Where does the skip stand? Is there room for the scaffolder's lorry to unload, and can neighbours still get their cars in and out while it does? Those answers decide how many deliveries we plan and how big each one is.
Wherever possible, scaffold stands on your own land, on a drive, a lawn or a hard-standing beside the house, and scaffolding on private ground needs no licence. If the only workable spot is on the road or path itself, permission has to be in place first, because section 169 of the Highways Act 1980 makes an obstructing scaffold on a highway lawful only under the highway authority's licence. West Sussex County Council asks for at least 10 working days' notice and charges £266 for one month. We settle with the scaffolder which of us files the application, and we build that wait into the start date so you are not told a day that the paperwork cannot meet.
Access words you may hear
On a lane that is officially a footpath, the delivery plan matters as much as the roof plan.
Before work starts we agree with you where deliveries will be dropped, when the skip arrives and where waste gets loaded. Materials come in sensible loads rather than all at once. Each day you hear what is happening on the roof and what comes next, so you are never left guessing, and if the weather forces a change we tell you what we have done to keep the house dry. When we finish for the evening, tools and loose tiles are put away and the working area is left safe, which counts for more on a narrow lane used by walkers, children and horse riders. Scaffold boards are stacked off the ground and ties are checked before we go home. If a neighbour's drive or verge is the only place a lorry can turn, we ask them first and leave it as we found it.
If the job is a complete re-cover, our roof replacement page sets out how a strip and re-roof runs from the first morning to the final tidy, including how the house stays watertight each night.
Stage 03 · Permissions
Ifold sits under Chichester District Council for planning and building control, and those rules start to count when the job reaches the whole roof.
Refitting matching tiles where they came from is simple. Swapping a few slipped tiles or re-fixing a loose ridge cap leaves the house as it looked the day before, and no form is involved. Rules begin to matter when the work spreads over much of the roof, when the covering itself is swapped, or when the house will look different from the lane. They also matter if the roof is being opened up for a loft room or a new roof window, which is a separate job with its own checks.
Checks as a job grows
The Planning Portal sets two tests for re-roofing: building control approval is normally not required where less than 25 per cent of the building envelope is affected and under half the roof is touched. It also lists a heavier covering, 15 per cent or more over the old one, as a trigger for approval. Going from clay to concrete, or from tile to slate, can alter both weight and minimum pitch, so we ask the question at the survey rather than after the tiles have been ordered. Chichester District Council is the building control body for Ifold, so a bigger re-roof is a matter for its team, and whatever the survey turns up goes into the written price. Where the new covering would be heavier, the Planning Portal suggests getting a structural engineer or surveyor to check the frame first.
Chichester District Council has a conservation area appraisal for Plaistow village, and none is listed for Ifold. Whether your own address sits inside a conservation area, or under an Article 4 direction that can withdraw permitted development rights across a defined area, is a question for Chichester District Council's planning team, so ask before changing how a roof looks. Our post on planning permission for roof work goes through what planning does and does not cover.
Bat roosts are protected by law. Under the Habitats Regulations 2017 harming a place where bats breed or rest is an offence in itself, and that particular offence does not depend on anyone meaning to do harm. A tiled roof with gaps at the eaves or under the ridge can hold a roost without anyone in the house knowing. We look for droppings and signs of use at the survey, and if we see any, the job pauses and the two of us decide the next step together. To begin, take a picture of the problem slope and email it to us along with your Ifold postcode.
Usually the state of the covering decides it, not the building's past. Ifold's first dwellings were basic retreats, and some may have been extended since. We examine the joins between old and new work, the battens and the fixings, then give you photos of what we found and one written price for either a repair or a re-cover.
We plan that at the survey. The roads inside the estate are classed as footpaths or bridleways, so we check where deliveries can stop and where scaffold can stand on your land. If it has to go on a road, the road's highway authority must grant a licence first, and we and the scaffolder agree who applies.
Chichester District Council is both the building control body and the planning authority for Ifold. A like-for-like swap seldom needs approval, though a large share of the roof or a heavier covering might. We raise it at the survey and name it in the written price, so you know where you stand before any work is booked in.
Chichester's appraisal list has one for Plaistow village, and none for Ifold. Whether your address is affected, or caught by an Article 4 direction, is a question for Chichester District Council's planning team, which holds the maps. Ask before changing how the roof looks, and we will wait for their answer before fixing a start date for any job that alters its appearance.
Tell us about the slope or join that worries you, add your postcode and where poles could go, and the survey gets booked.
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