Barham · 10.4 road miles north
Roofers in Barham
Barham sits in the Kent Downs National Landscape, with a Grade I church, a Grade II* court and conservation areas close to its centre. Canterbury City Council decides the planning questions, so the survey begins with your address and then reads the roof itself.
- Parish church
- St John the Baptist, Grade I, a Church of England church in use, so its works go through the faculty system
- Re-roofing test
- Planning Portal: under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof, normally no application
- Highway scaffold
- Kent County Council licence, £52 per week for 2026 to 2027; we arrange it with our scaffolder
- Drive from Folkestone
- 10.4 road miles, about 17 minutes by road
Under the Downs: three Barham faults, three verdicts
What we found
Lead lifting along a stepped abutment, brickwork sound
What it fairly needs
Re-dress or replace the strip and re-point the joint beside it.
What we found
Garage roof sheeting split and sagging between purlins
What it fairly needs
Take it off and put a new, supported covering on.
What we found
Stained loft timber under a quiet corner of the roof
What it fairly needs
Trace where the damp enters before deciding on any repair.
The fair ledger
Downs label, village boundaries and a Grade I church: your Barham roof
Barham lies within the Kent Downs National Landscape, which advises but does not decide, and conservation areas lie close to the centre of the village. Each entry ends with a repair, replace or check stamp.
Entry 01Downs label
Barham and the Kent Downs: who decides what happens to a roof
The Kent Downs National Landscape, formerly an AONB, includes Barham, yet the planning decision stays with Canterbury City Council.
A label on the land, not a planning body
The Kent Downs National Landscape team calls its own role advisory: it is not a local planning authority, and the council decides applications. For a Barham house that means Canterbury City Council, whatever the label on the map says. The designation matters most for work that changes how a house looks from outside, such as a dormer, which our planning permission guide deals with, while a plain re-roof is treated as it would be anywhere else.
Barham lies within the National Landscape as a place, but a single house is another matter, and whether your address falls inside the line is read from the Kent Downs map, never assumed. We check before we price. The council also has a statutory duty to seek to further the purposes of conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the National Landscape.
A repair under the existing covering raises none of this. A slipped or cracked section, a lifted lead strip or a failed gutter joint is surveyed, stamped and priced the same way here as anywhere else in our area, and each finding is tied to a named part of the roof.
Myth: The Downs team has to sign off any roof job in Barham.
Fact: The team advises the local planning authority and is not one; Canterbury City Council decides applications, while a plain re-roof is handled as it would be anywhere else.
Is my Barham house inside the Kent Downs boundary?
The village centre lies within the National Landscape, but a house out on the edge of Barham could fall either side of the line. Check the address on the Kent Downs map. We do the same before pricing, and write down what we found beside the quote, so any later question about the address has an answer on paper.
Entry 02Named boundaries
Conservation areas near Barham, from the old railway to Broome Park
Canterbury City Council lists several conservation areas close to the centre of Barham, and a house near any of them needs its address looked up first.
Names on the council's list
Close to the middle of Barham, Canterbury City Council lists Broome Park, Derringstone, Out Elmstead, Elham Valley Railway (Barham North) and Barham itself. Canterbury has 97 conservation areas across its district, so a Barham address may be inside one, beside one or in none, and it is Canterbury's own information that tells you which.
Repairs carry on inside a conservation area as they would outside one. Re-covering a roof in the usual way is normally permitted development there too, and what changes is the care taken over bigger alterations. An Article 4 direction can remove further rights, and Canterbury City Council can say whether one applies to your house, so check with it before booking anything that alters the outside of the house.
Building control for Canterbury addresses goes through the STG Building Control Partnership (Canterbury, Gravesham, Medway and Swale), on 01634 331133. Nationally, the Planning Portal sets the re-roofing test: no application is normally needed while the work touches under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof, and approval is wanted for a covering 15 per cent or more heavier. For the work itself see roof replacement, which also covers how a tired slope is stripped and re-laid.
Same village, different next steps
Address inside a named area
Ask Canterbury
Cracked lead at a stack
Re-dress the lead
Whole slope tired and leaking
New covering
What moves a Barham quote
- How far the damage spreads
- Which questions the council raises
- Access to the roof and the eaves
- The state of the timber below
One written total price
Three entries on Historic England's list
The Church of St John the Baptist is Grade I (list entry 1084903), Barham Court is Grade II* (1336516) and Riverside Cottage is Grade II (1336518). St John the Baptist is a Church of England church still in use, and an exempt denomination of that kind handles its works through the faculty system, a permission granted inside the church's own jurisdiction, and not through the council's listed building consent.
A listed house or cottage works differently. A listed house keeps permitted development for roof work, yet anything touching its character also needs listed building consent, which the Listed Buildings Act requires. Where a Barham address proves to be listed, the quote waits for Canterbury City Council's reply to the consent question, and the reply is kept with the paperwork for whoever owns the house next.
On an older roof the metalwork at stacks, abutments and valleys is where we spend longest, with a torch and a close look at every lapped joint; lead work and chimney repairs show how those jobs go. A neighbour's listing says nothing about your house, which is judged on its own entry, and a quick look at the National Heritage List shows whether your address has one. We make that look before pricing, and note the result with the quote.
Entry 03Church and court
St John the Baptist, Barham Court and Riverside Cottage on the list
A Grade I church, a Grade II* court and a Grade II cottage stand in Barham, each with its own consent question before roof work.
A list entry tells you what to ask; only the loft tells you what is wrong.
What a stack asks of its metalwork
- Stepped flashing
- Joint at the brickwork
- Soakers under the tiles
- Flaunching round the pot
Where a stack meets the slope, four parts have to work together to keep rain out.
Is your Barham roof a Downs question, a boundary question or just a leak?
Send the house number and one photo of the trouble. We look up the address, stamp what we find, and set a single written price against the job, with any council answer written beside it.
Up the road to Barham
Barham is north of Folkestone, 10.4 road miles by the route we drive and about 17 minutes. At the 2021 Census Barham parish had 1,321 usual residents. The Environment Agency's flood map places Flood Zone 3 land close to the centre of the village, which is a label the map puts on land and says nothing about roofs. Because the village is so near, one visit can take in the slopes, the gutters, the chimney stacks and the loft, and a second trip is needed only if the council has a question for us.
Barham roof questions, from Downs rules to gutters
Plain answers for a village in the Downs with a Grade I church.
Can slipped tiles on a Barham roof be refixed without a new covering?
Yes, where the battens under them are sound and the clips or nails have simply let go. The survey checks the courses beside the slip, because a loose tile can sit next to others that are slackening. We also look from the loft for daylight and stained timber. A handful of refixed tiles is a repair on the quote. If the battens are soft along a run, the answer changes, and you are told why before any price is set, with a photograph of the timber.
Does the Kent Downs team need to approve a re-roof in Barham?
No. The Kent Downs National Landscape team advises the local planning authority and is not one, and Canterbury City Council decides planning applications. A plain re-roof is treated as it would be anywhere. Anything that changes the shape of the roof, a dormer for example, is for the planning guide and the council. We check whether your address lies inside the National Landscape on the Kent Downs map before we price, and we tell you what the answer means for the job.
Which team checks a new roof in Barham for Building Regulations?
Canterbury addresses go through the STG Building Control Partnership, which serves Canterbury, Gravesham, Medway and Swale, on 01634 331133. On the Planning Portal's test, a re-roof normally needs no application while it touches under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof, whereas a covering 15 per cent or more heavier calls for approval. Before you sign we say which side of that line the job sits, and what the written price assumes about it, so the figure is not revised halfway through.
Who sorts the scaffold licence for a Barham roof over the lane?
We arrange it with our scaffolder. Kent County Council issues scaffold licences for every Kent address, charges £52 per week for 2026 to 2027 for a permit of 7 calendar days, and says the skip or scaffolding company should submit the application for you. It asks for all applications, renewals included, 5 working days before the start date, so a longer Barham job is planned around that date from the first day, and the permit weeks are counted before the scaffold goes up.
What does a Barham roof survey cover from the ridge to the gutters?
We start along the ridge and hips for loose fixings, then the valleys and the lead round stacks and abutments, then the gutters, fascias and downpipes. Inside the loft we read the underside of the covering and the timber for light, staining and damp. Each part is marked repair, replace or check, and the written price follows the survey. If the council has been asked a question, its answer is set down beside that price, and any part out of reach is named as such.
My Barham chimney lets in damp after rain: repair or rebuild?
That depends on what the stack shows once the flashing is lifted and the pointing has been read. Crumbled pointing with sound brickwork calls for repointing and fresh lead. A leaning stack or shifted courses call for a rebuild, and the quote says so plainly. Lead flashing that is correctly installed can last for over 80 years, according to MyJobQuote, so a sound run is kept and a lifted strip is mended, with the photographs kept for your records.
Show us the Barham roof that worries you
You'll get one written total price.