Roofs scattered around Outwood Common on the Wealden clay.
Outwood is a scattered Surrey village around its common, with Grade II listed buildings and a conservation area covering some of it. We survey each roof as we find it and price in writing.
The barn near Hook House Farm was first listed on 25 April 1984, and Gayhouse and Hook House Farmhouse are Grade II too. On a listed roof we find out what consent is needed before we price.
Old barn roof covered in tiles
The Outwood conservation area covers a section of Outwood. Before the look of a roof changes there, we ask Tandridge District Council's planning team and pass on what they say.
Tiled cottage roof in a village
Houses spread around the common can sit down a lane or a long drive. At the survey we check how scaffold, materials and a skip will reach the roof, and write it into the plan.
Pitched roof seen from a garden
Map of Outwood and the neighbourhoods around it, with Crawley for reference.
Outwood is a scattered village on the Wealden clay between Redhill and Smallfield, with its houses and farms spread around Outwood Common.
Notes from Outwood
Three short chapters on how Outwood became a parish, what its listed buildings and conservation area mean for a roof, and which Surrey rules come into play when a job gets bigger.
Stage 01 · Background
Outwood was formed from five older parishes, and its loose spread of plots is why every roof here gets looked at on its own terms.
Outwood was not always a parish of its own. It became an ecclesiastical district on 19 August 1870, formed from the parishes of Bletchingley, Burstow, Horley, Horne and Nutfield. That is a lot of neighbours for a small place, and it helps explain why Outwood feels like a loose spread of lanes, farms and cottages rather than one street with a centre. In 1911 the Victoria County History still recorded some open ground at Outwood Common, and noted that Abbot's Hospital, Guildford, owned land in the village.
It means one house tells us very little about the next. A cottage beside the common and a farmhouse down a lane can be decades apart in age, so each survey starts from a blank page. We look at the covering, how the ridge and edges are held, what lies beneath the tiles or slates and how the loft breathes. Our photographs record each of those on your roof, and the slipped tile or sunken valley is there for you to judge before you agree to a penny. If the roof proves sound, you hear that and we leave it alone.
Outwood inspection notes
A great deal. Some village homes stand well back from the road, down a track or behind a gate. That decides how scaffold is delivered, where a skip can sit and how far old tiles must be carried. Before quoting, we go over the way in on foot, check what a lorry can reach and write the findings into the plan, so nobody discovers on the first morning that a gate is too narrow. Our pitched roofing page explains how we repair and renew tiled and slated slopes once we can get to them.
The lowest edge of the roof needs attention on a plot like this as well. A house near trees or the common gathers leaves in its gutters, and a gutter that has stood full all winter can send rain backwards, up beneath the bottom course. We check the eaves, fascia and downpipes at every survey and tell you plainly when the fault lies with the gutter rather than the roof. We also put a head through the loft hatch, looking for chinks of light, damp battens and dark marks on the underside of the underlay, because a roof can look perfect from the drive and still admit water at one slipped tile.
Stage 02 · Heritage
Outwood has Grade II listed buildings and a conservation area, so on certain houses the council is asked before anything else.
The National Heritage List records the barn five yards north-west of Hook House Farm House as Grade II, first listed on 25 April 1984. Gayhouse and Hook House Farmhouse are Grade II as well. Part of Outwood also lies inside the Outwood conservation area, whose boundary Tandridge District Council publishes on its mapping pages. None of this stops roof work from happening. It settles who has to agree to the work first, and it is far better to learn that before a scaffold goes up than after.
Under the Listed Buildings Act, works that alter a listed building so as to change its character need authority first, and the roof shapes much of a building's appearance. Whether one particular repair needs listed building consent is for the council to say, and the answer depends on what is being done. If you own one of Outwood's listed buildings, put the question to Tandridge District Council's planners before you order materials. We can pass them our photos with a short written account of the repair, which speeds up the reply, and our guide to re-roofing a listed building sets out the steps. A chimney stack on an older building raises the same question, and our chimney repairs page explains the common faults, from crumbling flaunching (the mortar bed the pots sit in) to lifted lead flashings.
Only a section of the village falls within it, so do not assume. The national conservation area dataset records the area under the name Outwood, but your own address is a question for the council's map or its planning team. Inside the area, mending in matching materials is the simplest road, since the village sees no change. A change of covering, colour or profile is the kind of step to raise before you commit. Ask the council as well whether an Article 4 direction applies to your address, because a direction can withdraw some of the usual freedoms for changes to a roof.
Heritage terms for Outwood roofs
When the council has to be asked, its answer arrives before the written price does. That way the figure you sign covers only work you are allowed to carry out, and nothing has to be redone because a letter turned up late. Send us the address, any photos and the listing details if there are some; we will tell you which of these questions apply to your roof.
Stage 03 · Permissions
Tandridge District Council decides planning, Surrey County Council runs the roads, and both come into play as a repair grows.
Most small jobs leave the roof looking the same, and then no form is involved. The picture changes when a repair grows into a complete re-roof, when someone wants a new type of tile or slate, or when the scaffold needs the highway. Each of those has an owner in Surrey, and it helps to know who before the diary fills up.
Planning Portal guidance draws the line in two parts: less than 25 per cent of the building envelope and less than 50 per cent of the roof. Approval is also needed when a replacement covering raises the weight by 15 per cent or more, or when it would perform differently in a fire. Building control here is the Southern Building Control Partnership, the shared team Tandridge District Council uses. When a survey suggests a whole slope has to come off, we contact the partnership before agreeing a start, and the single price we put in writing reflects their answer. A heavier covering than the one removed can trigger approval, so we keep to the original type unless you choose to change it. Our roof replacement page shows each step of a full re-roof, from first visit to final tidy.
What we photograph in Outwood
Surrey County Council licenses any scaffold that occupies the carriageway or the pavement in front of a house, and asks for 10 working days' notice at minimum. A licence costs £208 for each 28 day period. Standing a scaffold entirely inside your boundary takes no highway licence, so a wide drive can save the fee. If it has to go on the road, the licence is arranged with our scaffolder, and work starts once the notice period has run. On a narrow lane we also tell the neighbours who drive it which days the scaffold will stand.
The law shields bats and their roosts completely, and the government's bat guidance treats roof repair and replacement as work needing care. Should the survey find droppings or a gap that seems occupied, we halt and go through the options with you. The first step is yours: photograph whichever corner of the roof is bothering you from the garden, add your Outwood postcode and send both across.
At the survey we pace out the route and note the gate width, the turning space and the nearest place a lorry can stop. That decides where the scaffold goes, where the skip sits and how materials are carried to the roof. That route is built into the written price, the first morning holds no shocks, and each day's plan is shared with you.
The national conservation area dataset shows part of Outwood inside a conservation area, drawn from boundaries supplied by Tandridge District Council. We cannot tell from a postcode whether your house is in it. Check the council's conservation area map against your address, or ask its planning team, and mention the answer when you send us your survey request.
Tandridge District Council uses the Southern Building Control Partnership, a team it shares with Reigate and Banstead and Mole Valley. A tile-for-tile repair needs no application of any kind. If the survey shows the job is a bigger re-roof, we speak to the partnership before booking a start date, so any approval is settled before work begins.
We can survey and price it, but the council decides first whether consent is needed. Send us the building's listing details if you have them. We photograph the roof, describe the repair in plain words and hand you that package to take to Tandridge District Council's planning team, so the written price follows their answer.
Send a photo of the worrying slope and your Outwood postcode, plus a note on how we reach the house, and we will book it.
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