Listed farm buildings
Ashford Farm House is listed Grade II, and so are two barns by Lower Farm House. A roof on a listed building is judged against its listing, so we confirm the council's view before we plan any change.
Aged tiled barn roof
Roofers in Stoke D'Abernon
Roofs in a Mole-side village with Roman tiles in its church walls.
Stoke D'Abernon sits on gravel beside the River Mole, with listed farm buildings and a station that opened in 1885. Our visit starts with the tiles, ridge and loft and ends in one written price.
A Stoke D'Abernon roof, layer by layer
Houses beside the Guildford line
The village station opened in 1885, and the village has grown over time. Nobody can safely assume one roof matches the next, which is why a survey of yours runs from the tiles to the loft hatch.
Pitched tiled house roofs
Mortar-bedded ridges and verges
Where a ridge or verge cap sits in mortar, the 2014 revision of BS 5534 expects mechanical fixing too. When we rebed one we fix it down as well, and if dry-fix would serve you better we tell you so.
Mortar-bedded ridge on tiles
Stoke D'Abernon on the map
Map of Stoke D'Abernon and the neighbourhoods around it, with Crawley for reference.
Stoke D'Abernon is a small village by the River Mole, three miles north-west of Leatherhead and a mile and a half east of Cobham.
- Distance
- 26.8 road miles from Crawley, to the north-west
- Drive
- About 34 minutes
- Council
- Elmbridge Borough Council and Surrey County Council
- Planning authority
- Elmbridge Borough Council
- Listed nearby
- Ashford Farm House, Grade II (entry 1030074)
- Building control
- Elmbridge Building Control Services
A job in Stoke D'Abernon
What a Mole-side survey turns up
Three short chapters on the village's gravel and Roman tiles, its listed farm buildings, and the Elmbridge and Surrey rules that apply to a bigger job.
Stage 01 · Background
Gravel, the Mole and Roman tiles
The village stands on gravel near the River Mole, and its oldest tiles are Roman ones built into the church walls, not roof tiles.
Stoke D'Abernon's oldest tiles are not on a roof at all. The Victoria County History of Surrey records that the village, church and manor-house stand on gravel near the River Mole, and that many Roman tiles went into the original church walls, which suggests a Roman building nearby. The same account describes a medicinal spring on Stoke Common, Jessopp's Well, said to contain Epsom salts, and notes that Cobham and Stoke D'Abernon station on the Guildford line opened in 1885. It is an old village with a long record, and that leaves us with one practical rule: every roof here is its own case.
Is the roof over my kitchen like my neighbour's?
It is rarely safe to assume so. Before we price anything we look at the tile profile and colour, at how the ridge (the capping on the roof's highest line) and the verge (the tiled edge running up the side of a gable) are held, at what the underlay is, and at how the loft breathes. Photos of your own roof show you what we found, and the single written price follows from them. Two doors along, the same repair could be the wrong one, and a picture shows why without any jargon.
Groundwork for a bigger job
- Tiles
- Slipped, cracked or worn
- Ridge
- Caps bedded and held firmly
- Verge
- Gable edge secure, not loose
- Underlay
- Whole, with the eaves clear
- Loft
- Air path left open
What gives way first on an older tiled roof?
Usually the parts around the tile rather than the tile itself. Mortar cracks, nails rust and flashing (metal sealing the joint between roof and wall) lifts, and once water finds a gap it follows the battens (the thin timber rails that carry the tiles) to a spot well away from where it came in. For a sense of scale, Marley gives a concrete tile roughly 60 years while stressing that this promises nothing, and for clay, 60 years is the minimum life expectancy given by the Building Research Establishment. A sound tile can stay put while the mortar, fixings and flashing around it are renewed, which is a smaller job than stripping the slope.
The loft gets equal attention. Under a non-breathable felt, BS 5250 guidance wants air moving along the eaves, and insulation pressed hard into the corner can shut that path. We check the gap, look for damp marks on the battens and tell you what we see. On our pitched roofing page you can read how repairs to tiles, battens and underlay are approached, and what decides between a patch and a bigger job.
Stage 02 · Listed buildings
Ashford Farm House and the listed barns
The village has a Grade II farm house and two Grade II barns, and listed roofs begin with the listing, not the ladder.
Stoke D'Abernon's listed buildings include working farm buildings as well as houses. Ashford Farm House carries a Grade II listing, number 1030074 in the National Heritage List, dated 28 May 1969, and two barns by Lower Farm House, numbers 1192046 and 1030107, share the grade. A house or outbuilding that is itself listed, or that stands right beside one, has a roof the listing may protect. That does not mean nothing can be done. It means the order of work changes, and a few questions come before the first quote.
Do I need consent to mend a listed roof?
Consent is the council's permission for alterations that bear on a listed building's special interest, and the law bars that kind of alteration unless the works are authorised. Where that line falls for a particular repair is for Elmbridge Borough Council's planners to decide, so put the question to them. Do it before the scaffold is booked and quote the list entry number. The answer on consent is separate from the planning question, which our post do you need planning permission for roof work covers in general terms.
Words on a listing
- Grade II
- A national grade for special interest
- List entry
- The building's number in the national record
- Consent
- Permission from the council for changes
- Matching
- Copying the old tile, colour and fixing
On a listed roof the order is list entry, then the council, then the scaffold, never the reverse.
How is an old farm roof handled?
Slowly, and with a record. We photograph the roof before any tile moves, record the tile size, the colour and the fixing already in place, and agree with the council what matching means for that building. Old and reclaimed tiles behave differently from new ones. The tiling code, BS 5534, admits that its advice may not fit the retiling of some older roofs, most of all with traditional or reclaimed materials, and that candour is the reason we study the existing method before suggesting a different one.
A barn with one long slope raises practical questions too: how a ladder or scaffold gets close, where the waste goes and who needs to be told. We settle those at the survey, and one total covers every part of the job. If you have the list entry number, send it with your photos and we will read the entry before we visit. Where a roof has been mended more than once, we say which repairs look sound and which have been patched over. A listed roof that needs more than patching moves into roof replacement territory, where the council's view carries even more weight, and where a clear record of what was found underneath helps everyone agree the next step.
Stage 03 · Permissions
Permissions on the Elmbridge side
Elmbridge Borough Council decides planning, Elmbridge Building Control Services checks approvals, and Surrey County Council grants scaffold licences for the road.
Refixing a few slipped tiles with matching ones is a job nobody applies for. Forms enter the picture only when the work outgrows repair, when a new covering is proposed, or when scaffold needs a spot on the public road. For planning, Stoke D'Abernon answers to Elmbridge Borough Council, and Elmbridge has a conservation area named Stoke D'Abernon on the national planning map, so confirm with Elmbridge which side of that boundary your house sits on before altering a roof's look. Matching repairs are the easy case either way, and a listed building has its own rules, as above.
What tips a Stoke D'Abernon re-roof into approval?
The Planning Portal sets two tests side by side: under 25 per cent of the building envelope touched, and under 50 per cent of the roof. Going 15 per cent or more heavier on the covering, or choosing one that fares notably differently in a fire, means applying; for any heavier tile on a Mole-side house, an engineer's or surveyor's check of the timbers comes first. Elmbridge Building Control Services handles the borough's approvals for the council. If the survey finds that an entire slope has to come off, we ask them early, ahead of any start date, and the total in your quote reflects their reply.
Bigger-job checks in Elmbridge
- Planning
- Elmbridge Borough Council
- Approvals
- Elmbridge Building Control Services
- Conservation area
- Stoke D'Abernon area: check address
- Scaffold fee
- Surrey licence, £208 per 28 days
- Notice
- 10 working days before the start
Will the poles stand on the road?
If they do, the highway authority must grant a scaffold licence, and in this part of Surrey that is the county council: it wants 10 working days from application to start and charges £208 per 28-day period. Which of us submits the application gets agreed with the scaffolder at the outset, so the paperwork does not land on you. No highway licence comes into it when the scaffold stays inside your boundary, though it still needs a clear passage down the flank of the house for tiles coming in and rubbish going out.
Should bats appear, we put the tools down and discuss it with you first; roof work appears in government guidance among the things that can affect bats, whose roosts the law protects in full. Wild birds' nests are covered as well while they are in use. Where a ridge or verge cap is what bothers you, our dry ridge and dry verge page explains the fixing systems that followed the 2014 revision of BS 5534. If you are weighing up a first step, a few photos of the worrying area and your postcode will do, with the list entry number added if the building is listed.
Jobs we price in Stoke D'Abernon
Straight answers for Stoke D'Abernon homes
Is there a quick way to learn whether my Stoke D'Abernon house is listed?
Yes: type the address into the National Heritage List's search. Stoke D'Abernon entries already include Ashford Farm House and two barns beside Lower Farm House, so farm buildings here are worth checking. If yours appears, ask Elmbridge Borough Council's planning team about consent before booking any scaffold. Pass us the entry number with your photos, so the total reflects the extra care.
What will scaffold on the road add to a Stoke D'Abernon quote?
Two costs. Surrey County Council charges £208 per 28-day period for a licence, and the scaffold itself is another: Checkatrade's October 2026 roof replacement guide says £700 to £1,300 where the job is a new roof. Whoever quotes you, ask whether VAT and the scaffold are inside their total. Ours is one written figure, set after the survey shows what access the roof needs.
Do mortar-bedded ridge caps have to be swapped for a dry system?
No. Marley notes that fixing to BS 5534 is not required by law. It reads the 2014 revision as saying mortar alone should not be relied on, so every bedded ridge, hip or tile also needs mechanical fixing. A bedded ridge can therefore stay bedded if it is fixed as well, and dry-fix built to BS 8612 is the other route. We look at what you have and recommend the lighter job.
Will the work stop if bats are found in my roof?
Yes. Full legal protection covers every bat species and its roost, and one of the activities the official bat guidance lists is work on a roof. Should signs appear during the survey or the work, we stop, tell you what we saw and what comes next, and continue only once that is settled with you and any adviser involved.
A survey and one price for your Stoke D'Abernon roof
Tell us which part of the roof worries you, with your postcode and any list entry number, and we will suggest survey dates.