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Roofers in Boxgrove

Boxgrove grew along a street west of its priory church, with thatched and tiled cottages, flint walls and a windmill on the hill. We survey roofs of every age here and show you the evidence.

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Three Boxgrove roofs, and where they need watching

  • A pitched cottage roof in tile

    Cottages built after 1700

    The Victoria County History says most buildings on Boxgrove's village street date from after 1700. A roof that old has usually been re-covered more than once, so tiles, battens and nails can each be of a different age.

  • A tiled roof meeting a stack

    Thatch beside tile, flint beside brick

    Several older cottages are thatched, one inscribed 1738, and a house at Strettington has flint and free-stone walls with 17th-century brick angles.

    Read more about Thatch beside tile, flint beside brick

    Where thatch gives way to a tiled extension or a chimney, the join needs careful lead.

  • A tiled roof beside flint walls

    The priory church roof

    St Mary and St Blaise, the former priory church, is flint with Caen stone among its ashlar dressings, under a tile roof.

    Read more about The priory church roof

    Work on it goes through the Church of England's faculty route, but the meeting of tile, flint and dressed stone there is the same junction found on cottages along the street.

Street map of Boxgrove, west of central Worthing, with a pin on the town.

A planning check for Boxgrove roofs

Planning authority
Chichester District Council
Councils
Chichester District Council and West Sussex County Council
Conservation areas
Boxgrove and Halnaker, each with a character appraisal
Church
St Mary and St Blaise, the former priory church (Church of England)
Landmark
Halnaker windmill, 18th century, on Halnaker Hill
From central Worthing
18.3 road miles, west, about 27 minutes by car

Boxgrove roofs

From Stane Street to Halnaker Hill

Three roofing questions that come from the age of Boxgrove's street, its flint church and its open ground.

Chapter one

Re-covering a Boxgrove cottage built after 1700

Most of the village street dates from after 1700, so its roofs have had several coverings and carry the marks of each one.

The Victoria County History says Boxgrove's village street runs north and south to the west of the Priory Church, and that most of its buildings date from after 1700. For a roofer that is a useful date. A building from the eighteenth century has been through two or three coverings since it went up, and each re-roofing has left a trace: tiles from different batches, laths of different ages, nails that rusted at different rates. Several older cottages here are thatched, one carrying the inscription M/IM 1738. Where thatch gives way to tile, at a chimney, an extension or a lean-to, the roof changes character, and so does the fault we expect to find there.

At a glance

  • Most buildings on the street date from after 1700
  • Several older cottages are thatched
  • Chimney stacks take up much of a small roof
Roofer on a chimney scaffold repointing an old brick stack
Roofer on a chimney scaffold repointing an old brick stack

1.1 Chimney stacks on small roofs

Cottage roofs are small, so a stack takes up a large share of the slope. Water gets in at three places: the flaunching, which is the sloping mortar bed that seats the pots; the flashings where the stack meets the tiles; and the brick or flint of the stack itself. We check each from the loft and from the ladder. A cracked flaunching is a modest repair. Lead that has pulled away is dressed back or renewed, with a tray (a folded sheet of lead that carries water round the base) where a stack rises through the middle of the slope. Stacks repay careful work, because a leak there runs down the chimney breast and shows up as a stain in a bedroom, far from the cause.

Roofer on a chimney scaffold repointing an old brick stack
Roofer on a chimney scaffold repointing an old brick stack

1.2 Matching what is already there

An old cottage roof has an uneven, hand-made look that new tiles seldom copy. When we strip a slope, the sound tiles are picked out of the pile and relaid where they show to the street, while the replacements go where they hide, on the back. If a whole slope must come off, we suggest a covering to suit the building and explain why. A roof that looks sound from the road can hide a rotten wall plate, the timber the rafters sit on, where the eaves meet the wall, so we check the lowest course closely. Timbers are checked before anything is laid, since old rafters and battens, the slim laths the tiles hang from, can be soft at the eaves. Both go into the written quote. Our chimney repairs page covers stacks in detail, and ridge tile repairs covers the line along the top.

Victorian terrace chimney stacks with spalled bricks and old lead flashing

Fig. 1 On the survey Lead lifting away from a brick stack

Most chimney leaks start at the join, not the pot.

Chapter two

The priory church, Caen stone and two conservation areas

Boxgrove and Halnaker each have a conservation area, and the church at the centre decides how consent works for its neighbours.

Worthing rooftops of slate and tile running down to the sea
Rooftops of slate and tile running down to the sea

Boxgrove parish has two conservation areas, Boxgrove and Halnaker, and each of them has its own character appraisal. At the heart of the first stands the church of St Mary and St Blaise, formerly the priory church, which the Victoria County History records as built of flint with ashlar dressings in Caen stone among other stone, under a tile roof. Flint and cut stone make a mixed surface for a roofer to work against. The joints are irregular, and a wall of that kind does not move at the same rate as the roof it supports.

At a glance

  • The priory church is flint with Caen stone dressings
  • Boxgrove and Halnaker each have an appraisal
  • A working church uses its own approvals route

2.1 Roofs that meet flint

At a flint wall, the seal is lead let into a mortar joint. The face is lumpy, so the lead is cut to follow it and the joint behind has to be sound enough to grip. Where the wall rises above a sloping roof we cut the lead in a series of small steps, one for each course of tiles, and take each step up into a bed joint. That stepped flashing is slow work, and it is the most dependable way of keeping a rising wall dry. We rake out loose mortar, see how deep we can safely go, and fit the lead tight along the top edge and free to move at the bottom. A failed join can show as a damp patch inside, well below the real fault, which is why we trace the water before quoting. The photographs that come with the quote show the lead, the wall and the gap between them, so the repair is explained on your own house.

2.2 Which consent applies to which building

The route depends on what the building is. The Church of England looks after works to its own churches in use through a faculty, not through the council; if a church closes, the council's listed building controls return. On a listed house, a repair in non-matching materials needs listed building consent. An unlisted house in either conservation area can usually have a like-for-like repair without planning permission, but whether an Article 4 direction applies is a question for the Chichester planning team, and the answer is worth having before a covering changes. Our roof planning permission guide sets out what to ask. We check roofs near a church for bats and nesting birds before any stripping starts.

Consent routes around Boxgrove roofs

Church of England church in use
Church's faculty process, not listed building consent
Closed church
Exemption ends; listed building consent applies
Scheduled monument
The Secretary of State's consent
Listed house, non-matching repair
Listed building consent needed
Unlisted house, like-for-like repair
Usually no planning permission

Source: Ecclesiastical Exemption Order 2010; Department for Culture, Media and Sport guidance; Adur & Worthing Councils; Town and Country Planning Act 1990 s55, fetched October 2026

Chapter three

Open ground below the Downs: wind, tiles and fixings

Stane Street crosses flat land at Boxgrove, with Halnaker Hill's windmill above, so the roofs here are fixed for open weather.

The road from Chichester to Petworth crosses Boxgrove on the line of the Roman Stane Street, and the Victoria County History describes the southern part of the parish as flat, at about 60 ft. Above it, on Halnaker Hill, stands an eighteenth-century windmill of round tapering form with a wooden cap, a building made to catch the wind. Roofs on open ground like this meet the same wind without a mill's purpose, and the way a tile is held decides whether it stays on in a gale. A thatched neighbour and a tiled one face identical weather, but only one of them can lose a tile.

At a glance

  • The southern parish is flat, at about 60 ft
  • Pitch under 30 degrees raises suction on the windward slope
  • Daylight at the ridge shows where to look

3.1 Why fixing matters on open ground

Marley explains that the wind load on a roof is calculated from the basic wind speed of the site, with factors added for terrain, topography, building height and length. A flat, open site scores differently from a sheltered street. Marley adds that below 30 degrees of pitch the slope facing the wind can suffer severe suction. A low-pitched cottage extension or a lean-to is therefore worth a proper look. BS 5534 as revised in 2014 expects ridge and hip tiles to be fixed mechanically as well as bedded in mortar. The alternative, a dry-fix ridge held by clips, is covered by BS 8612:2018. Open ground does not call for a different roof, only a more carefully fixed one: the verge tiles at a gable edge, the ridge and the eaves course are where wind gets under first, so those are the courses we fix most deliberately.

3.2 Surveying before you decide

A survey is the plainest way to learn whether a roof needs a repair or a re-cover. We go through the loft, looking for daylight at the ridge, damp on the rafters and underlay (the membrane beneath the tiles) that has torn or perished. Then we check the slopes, ridge and chimney from a ladder and compare what we see with what the stain suggests. Not every roof has to be walked on, and a steep or fragile one is not. After the survey you get the written quote, and the photographs show what we found. Our roof inspections and surveys page explains the choices, including when a drone view saves putting a ladder against fragile tiles. The guide prices below are national figures from MyBuilder, not ours.

What a roof inspection costs nationally

  • Standard inspection£150 to £250
  • Drone survey£200 to £400
  • Thermal survey£300 to £500

Once the survey is done, the price reaches you on paper as a single sum, so you need not guess which of these suits your roof. Source: MyBuilder roof inspection cost guide, updated 21/08/2026.

Roofing services for Boxgrove cottages and farmhouses

Boxgrove roof questions, from the street to Halnaker

Can a cottage next to a thatched roof be re-tiled without touching the thatch?

Usually yes. The tiled slope is stripped and relaid on its own, and the join with the older roof is closed with lead as the work proceeds. Access is the careful part: ladders and scaffold are placed so they do not lean on the thatch. We check the abutment, the chimney and the gutter first, and photograph the junction so the thatcher and you can both see the position.

Does the faculty process for the priory church apply to my house?

No. The faculty process belongs to the church building itself, while services are held there. A house nearby follows the ordinary rules: listed building consent if the house is listed, and a check with the Chichester planning team for any conservation area or Article 4 direction. Like-for-like repairs on an unlisted house do not usually need planning permission.

Is a Halnaker roof treated differently from a roof in Boxgrove village?

The two have separate conservation areas, each with its own character appraisal, and both fall to the Chichester planning team. The questions are the same in each: is the building listed, is the covering changing, and does any direction remove rights? Like-for-like repair rarely needs permission. Before work starts we take pictures of the roof in its present state, which keeps a record of the existing material.

How do you check a roof joint against a flint wall before quoting?

We look at it from inside and out. In the loft we trace damp stains back to the wall; outside we check the lead tucked into the flint joints, the mortar behind it and any gap where the roof has moved. If the joint is sound, the repair is local. If the mortar has failed along a length, we show you the photographs and quote for the whole run.

Roofers near Boxgrove

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