Roofs in a village near Godalming, with Elizabethan houses and tall chimneys.
Milford sits in the old parish of Witley, with a conservation area, listed cottages and 6,486 residents at the 2021 Census. Each roof is surveyed, photographed and priced once, in writing.
The Victoria County History describes a 17th-century brick manor house at Mousehill, west of Milford, with a large crow-stepped chimney at each end. Stepped brickwork like that takes careful pointing and flashing.
Brick chimney stack on a tiled roof
Rake is described as an Elizabethan house by the watercourse between Witley and Milford, and the same history notes old houses and cottages around the hamlet of Milford. Older timber and brick need a gentle hand.
Old cottage roof with tile and brick
Numbers 9, 11 and 15 Church Road are listed Grade II, as are Nine Elms Cottage, Chilston and Old Hurst. On a listed house, a roof change can need listed building consent first.
Tiled cottage roofs along a lane
Map of Milford and the neighbourhoods around it, with Crawley for reference.
Milford lies about a mile and a half from Godalming, outside the South Downs National Park, so Waverley Borough Council handles planning.
Milford work notes
Three short chapters on stepped chimneys and old brickwork, the heritage checks around Church Road, and the Surrey and Waverley rules behind scaffold and approvals.
Stage 01 · First look
Milford's records mention old houses with big brick chimneys, so the stack draws as much attention on a visit as the slopes.
Milford's recorded history is full of brickwork. The Victoria County History notes a fine 17th-century brick manor house at Mousehill, with a large crow-stepped chimney at each end and unusual shouldered-arch window heads. It also mentions an Elizabethan house at Rake, and a number of old houses and cottages in and around the hamlet of Milford. A record cannot show what sits on your roof today. It does give us a reason to inspect the chimneys early in every Milford survey, and to inspect them slowly, from the ridge and from the loft below.
At the chimney stack
A chimney stack is exposed to wind and rain on every face. Mortar joints wear back, and the cement collar that holds the pots, called the flaunching, can crack and admit water. Where the stack leaves the roof, a strip of lead known as a flashing is dressed into the brick joints and over the tiles. When that lifts or splits, rain follows the brickwork down into the house. The damp patch on a bedroom wall can sit several feet from the real fault, so we follow the stain upwards through the loft timbers, and run a hose over the suspect section where that helps, before suggesting any work. Brick that is damp through also needs time to dry, which we bring up before any repointing starts, because new mortar goes on best over sound, dry joints.
Not at all. Repointing, a new flaunching and fresh flashings often put a sound stack right, and that is usually a modest job. Rebuilding belongs to brickwork that has gone soft or has moved. Our chimney repairs page sets out the choices, and our lead work page covers the flashings themselves, where lead is the usual metal and one guide quotes 80 years or more for its life. On a listed house the planning team must agree before a stack changes its appearance in any way.
Photographs of your own stack and roof, a plain description of the faults, and one total price in writing. You see exactly what we saw before deciding anything. Where the smaller job is the wiser spend, the quote is for the smaller job, with our reasons written next to it. Nobody is steered towards a bigger bill than the roof needs.
Stage 02 · Permissions
Part of Milford lies in a conservation area and several homes are listed, so it pays to learn your own house's status before collecting prices.
The national planning dataset shows part of Milford inside the Milford conservation area, and the National Heritage List names several listed homes. Numbers 9, 11 and 15 Church Road are listed Grade II, first listed on 3 May 1973. Nine Elms Cottage with Chilston and the cottage next door are Grade II too, and so is Old Hurst. St John the Evangelist, Milford, was built in 1844, the year the ecclesiastical parish was separated from Witley. Those dates show how long some of these roofs have been standing, and also how many repairs they may have seen since.
Ask the planning team at Waverley Borough Council. It holds the conservation area boundary and the list, and can answer from your address. A listing covers the entire building, so it may take in the roof and the chimneys. Do this before collecting prices, not after. Our part is to describe your roof accurately and photograph it; the council decides what is acceptable on a protected one.
Heritage words in plain terms
Whether a repair on a protected roof counts as matching is the council's decision, not ours.
Work that leaves a listed building's special character untouched does not need consent, and the planning team will tell you whether yours falls into that group. Replacing a few slipped tiles with ones that match is far more likely to qualify than swapping the material. A house inside the conservation area that is not listed is a lighter matter, because a repair that leaves the appearance as it was is not the same as a new covering. We photograph the existing tile, ridge and verge (where the tiles finish above a gable end) so the council can see exactly what is there today, and so any replacement tile can be chosen to suit. The thinking behind the national rules is set out in our post on planning permission for roof work.
A place of worship that is in use can follow its own approval system instead of listed building consent, depending on the denomination. Anyone looking after such a roof should speak to the diocese or governing body before approaching a roofer, ourselves included. We are glad to survey and write up the roof for them, and the photographs help whichever body has to decide.
Stage 03 · On site
Roadside scaffold needs the county's licence and Waverley runs building control itself, so a larger Milford job brings two sets of paperwork.
Milford is in Surrey, so the county council looks after its roads while Waverley Borough Council handles planning and building regulations. Two councils mean two sets of questions. We put each one to the right body before a start date goes into the diary, so that nobody on your street is surprised by a scaffold lorry.
If poles or boards will sit on a public road or footway, Surrey wants a licence first. It publishes £208 for each 28 days, charges the same again to renew, and treats the application fee as non-refundable. Applications should reach the council at least 10 working days before the planned start, with a drawing of the scaffold layout. The page does not name the applicant. We therefore ask the scaffolders who will submit the form and keep in step with them, and your first day on site is counted forward from the council's notice period. If everything stays inside your own boundary, no licence is involved.
Milford job checklist
Waverley Borough Council runs its own building control pages and says next-day inspections are available when requested by 4pm the day before. Two Planning Portal limits mark out work that usually needs no approval: under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof itself. Separately, approval is needed whatever the area once the replacement covering is 15 per cent or more heavier, and the Planning Portal points you towards a structural engineer or surveyor before that step. Where our findings point to a bigger job, Waverley hears about it first and the quote records the outcome. Heavier slate or clay in place of light tile is the usual cause. Our roof replacement page follows a full new roof from first visit to handover.
Bats, along with their roosts and breeding sites, are protected in law; GOV.UK's bat guidance includes roof repair among the works that can harm them. A bird's nest is covered while a bird is using or building it. If we come across either under old tiles, inside a chimney void or in a loft, that stretch of roof is left alone and you hear the options from us first. The same goes for the gutters and fascias along the eaves, which we check while the access is already up so you do not pay for it twice.
Often, yes. When the brickwork is sound, repointing, a new cement flaunching and fresh lead flashings can cure a leak. A rebuild is for stacks where the brick has gone soft or the whole stack has shifted. The survey photos show which of the two your chimney needs, and the written price is for that job alone.
The national planning dataset shows part of Milford within the Milford conservation area, including the listed cottages on Church Road. Whether your own house is inside the boundary, or listed, is something Waverley Borough Council's planning team can confirm from your address. Pass the answer on to us before the survey, so the quote reflects what the council is likely to accept for your roof in particular.
Surrey County Council's page does not say, so we ask the scaffolders to confirm who submits it and then coordinate the process, which spares you the paperwork. The charge is £208 per 28 days and the council wants at least 10 working days' notice, so we build that into the date we give you for the first day on site.
Contain the water, keep photographs and receipts, and tell your insurer before you arrange permanent work. We make a leaking roof safe as the first step, then give a written price for the lasting repair. Listed homes and those in the conservation area need the planning team consulted before a change of covering, so mention that when you contact us.
Snap the chimney or tiles that puzzle you and email it with your postcode, so the first visit can start with a clear target.
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