Roofs above the London Clay, from a 1636 church to 1912 villas.
In 1912 the Victoria County History found Morden still quite rural, with villas going up in Ravensbury Park. Whatever your house replaced, we survey the roof it has now.
St Lawrence's church was rebuilt in 1636 in red brick with stone dressings and tiled roofs. Clay tiling has a long history in Morden, and where a roof allows it we repair with matching tiles.
Red brick walls under clay tiles
In 1912 Ravensbury Park was being cut up for villas. A villa of that age can have been mended many times, so we lift the story of the roof layer by layer instead of trusting the top coat.
Brick villa with a pitched roof
Morden Cottage, Morden Hall and Morden Lodge are each Grade II listed. If your own address is listed, tell us before we price: work that affects its character may need listed building consent.
Old brick house with tiled roof
Map of Morden and the neighbourhoods around it, with Crawley for reference.
Morden is a suburb on the London Clay on the old Clapham to Epsom road, with the Wandle to the east and Morden Park near.
Our Morden roof diary
Three short chapters on a small clay parish that turned into suburb, the older buildings with listing questions of their own, and how Merton's rules apply once a repair grows.
Stage 01 · Setting
Morden was among the smallest ancient Surrey parishes, and its villas of 1912 have had well over a century to collect repairs.
The Victoria County History of Surrey, written in 1912, describes Morden as one of the smallest ancient parishes in the county, and one of the few whose village and entire parish lie on the London Clay. The same account found it still quite rural, with Ravensbury Park then being cut up for villas. Morden has since filled in around that picture, but the buildings that went up in those years are still the ones we are called to, and they have had a long time to need work.
It adds layers. A house put up for sale around 1912 may have had a new covering put on once or twice, had its chimney taken down and rebuilt, gained a loft room, lost a lean-to and been patched after each winter. Every one of those jobs left a mark. When we survey, we do not trust the top layer alone. We look for a change of tile in the middle of a slope, a stack that leans or a flashing that no longer sits in the mortar joint, then follow the evidence to the cause. The photos we send show you the same things, so you can decide with us what needs doing.
What the survey reads on an older house
Where a chimney is involved, the flaunching is the sloped mortar collar that sheds water away from the pots, and the flashing is the lead or similar metal dressed round the base of the stack. Both are common places for a slow leak. Our chimney repairs page explains the work, and a failed lead collar is part of that same repair.
Not by default. A roof is judged by its condition, and that can be better than its age suggests. Sound clay tiles can see out a great many winters, and old hand-made ones are a special case that published life figures fit badly. We check how many tiles are cracked, whether the nibs that hold them on are intact, and whether the battens beneath are sound. If a repair will do, the written price is for the repair. If rot has spread through the battens on a whole slope, a strip and re-cover is the honest answer, and the survey notes show why.
Stage 02 · Heritage
Morden Cottage, Morden Hall and Morden Lodge are Grade II listed, so at some addresses the first call is to the council.
The National Heritage List for England names Morden Cottage (first listed on 7 May 1954), Morden Hall and Morden Lodge, all at Grade II. The 1912 history also records that St Lawrence's church was entirely rebuilt in 1636 in Gothic style, with Richard Garth paying for much of it, using red brick with stone quoins and dressings under tiled roofs. Those are the buildings the village is known for, and they set expectations for how tiles and brickwork should look.
Heritage terms at a glance
Under section 7 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, works that would alter or extend a listed building so as to touch its character need listed building consent unless they are otherwise authorised. Putting back tiles of the same material, size and pattern is a different question from changing the covering or the profile of the roof, and the council's planning team, here the London Borough of Merton, is the body that answers for a particular address. If the roof has a lead valley, a chimney apron or a ridge that must match the old, we photograph it before anything is touched, so the council and you can see the starting point. We would rather you ask first, and we will not start anything that might need consent until you hold it. Our answer on re-roofing a listed building sets out what usually comes up.
On a listed house the question is who must agree first, and the roof comes second.
Check the national list entry for your address or ask Merton's planning team. Do not rely on appearance: a plain house can be listed and a handsome one can be unlisted. On the national planning dataset, Morden Hall, Morden Cottage and Morden Lodge all sit inside the Wandle Valley conservation area, so if you live near them, ask Merton about your own street before planning more than a straight repair.
An unlisted house is simpler: a repair that keeps the old covering and look needs the least paperwork and usually the smallest bill. The 1912 account of St Lawrence's records tiled roofs, so tile has a long place among the village's buildings, and a repair that respects the original pattern keeps to that. When the survey shows a roof that has genuinely come to the end of its useful life, we explain the options in writing and put one total price on the one you choose.
Stage 03 · Permissions
Morden sits in the London Borough of Merton, beneath the Greater London Authority, and Merton runs its own building control service.
A tile-for-tile repair rarely meets the rules. A bigger job does, and London adds a few extra wrinkles because streets are busy and houses often stand close together. Here is how it works in Morden.
Morden is in a London borough, so planning and building control both sit with the London Borough of Merton, which operates its own building control section. The Greater London Authority sits higher up, but for a domestic roof the borough is your point of contact, and Merton's own planning and building control staff answer for a specific house. Under the Planning Portal's test, a re-roof normally needs no building control application when less than 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof is involved. A new covering that is at least 15 per cent heavier, or that would perform significantly differently in a fire, changes that. A switch from tile to a heavier natural stone would be one case, so the survey notes flag it if that is on the table. For a complete new roof the roof replacement page shows the sequence.
Surveying in Morden
A scaffold that narrows the pavement or stands on the carriageway takes a licence from the highway authority, whereas one wholly inside your own front garden or drive takes none. Merton's own fees and notice periods apply, so we confirm both with the borough before a date is fixed. We ask which office issues the licence and who submits the application. Where a house has a front garden or drive, we measure it during the survey visit and let you know whether the scaffold can stand inside your boundary, which can save a licence and a fee for the scaffolder to pass on.
If a bat roost is found while we work in the loft or at the eaves, work halts and we phone you, since roosts are protected in law and roof work can disturb them. The last thing to settle is access to the rear. If there is only a narrow side route, we plan deliveries around it. A flat-roofed addition at the back gets looked at on the same visit, and our flat roofing page explains how those roofs are repaired and replaced. To begin, send your postcode and a note of which room the damp reached.
Often the sound ones can stay. We check each slope for cracked tiles, broken nibs and rotten battens, then write up what a repair would cover and what a strip and re-cover would cost. A roof's age alone does not decide it, and old hand-made tiles do not follow the usual 60-year figure for clay at all.
Listing attaches to the building on the list, not to its neighbours, though a conservation area can take in a whole street. Morden Hall, Morden Cottage and Morden Lodge are each Grade II, so check if your own address is on the national list. All three also sit inside the Wandle Valley conservation area, so ask Merton's planning team whether your street is included.
Merton. The borough handles planning and also operates its own building control section, with the Greater London Authority higher up. A small repair needs neither. A full re-roof, or a different covering, may; we tell you which question to put to them before we confirm a start date, and we keep the survey photos for that conversation.
Only if it narrows the pavement or sits in the road, when the highway authority issues one. Scaffold inside your own front garden or drive needs nothing. We ask which office takes the application and who files it, and we measure your frontage at the survey so the likely route is clear before you agree a date.
Tell us which room the damp reached or which tiles have moved, add your Morden postcode, and the survey goes in the diary.
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