Roofers in High Halden

Historic England lists the Parish Church of St Mary at Grade I, list entry 1185888, first listed on 16 August 1962. For most listed buildings, work that alters the character of the building needs listed building consent under section 7 of the 1990 Act, granted by the district council. A church still used for Church of England worship sits outside that system. Its works need a faculty, which is the Church of England's own permission and is decided within the church, not by Ashford Borough Council.

For anyone who looks after a church, the place to begin is the evidence. A survey that walks each slope, notes what has moved and photographs it gives the church's advisers something solid to read. It also stops a small repair from being described as a large one, or the other way round. Our roof inspections service is built around exactly that kind of written finding.

A church roof also has to be read from more than one position. The ridge and hips are checked from the ground with binoculars, the valleys and gutters from wherever access is safe, and the lead at each wall from the nearest point a ladder can reach. Anything that cannot be seen is listed as unseen, so the report never implies a check that was not made.

If scaffold is needed, the lane outside decides how it is set up. Where it stands on the road, a permit is part of the job, and we deal with it through our scaffolder. Neither step depends on the faculty, so the survey and the permit enquiry can run while the church settles its own route, and the report is ready when the application is. If the roof is leaking in the meantime, the survey can also say which areas can be held with a temporary measure and which need work now.

Ashford Borough Council counts 43 conservation areas, High Halden's among them, and publishes an interactive map. Whether your house stands inside the boundary is a question for that map and not for anyone's memory of the lane. Replacing a worn covering is handled under the usual rules, but other things can change inside a boundary, and our planning guide for roof work sets out which.

Where an Article 4 direction is in force, some permitted rights are withdrawn for the properties it names. Only the council can say whether a given house is named, and we would put that question to it for you if it were ever in doubt. It is the right step before any change to the look of a roof from the road, such as a different tile colour or a rooflight on the front slope. Ask early, because a reply from the council can take time and the roof should not be left open while you wait for it.

Underneath the covering, the survey cares about different things. Underlay is the sheet that sits beneath the tiles, and it should lap properly over the battens and run into the gutter at the eaves. Battens are the timber laths the tiles hang on, and a rotten one will not hold a fixing however good the tile above it is. Both are checked from the loft where there is safe access, and both are written up with a photograph. When you contact the council, pictures taken from the road are the most useful, because the question is how the roof looks from public view. A neighbour's roof is not evidence for your own, since each address has its own status. Our pitched roofing service explains how a roof is rebuilt from those layers upward.