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Roofers in Rusper

Rusper sits on Weald clay near the Surrey border. We survey its timber-framed roofs, hung-tile walls and Victorian gables, and show you what is wrong on your own roof.

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Timber frames, hung tile and Victorian revival

  • Handmade clay tiles on a gable

    Timber frames under stone or clay

    Horsham District Council's appraisal says the village's oldest buildings are timber-framed, often gabled, and roofed in Horsham Stone or handmade clay tile.

    Read more about Timber frames under stone or clay

    Handmade tiles vary in thickness and camber, so a repair needs matching tiles, not whatever is nearest.

  • Tile hanging beside a roof slope

    Refaced cottages with hung tile

    Many humble timber-framed buildings were later refaced in brick, hanging tile or weatherboarding. Where a hung-tile wall meets the roof, a lead flashing seals the join, and water finds it quickly once the lead lifts or a tile nib snaps.

  • A Victorian gable with bargeboards

    Victorian houses in revived vernacular

    Later nineteenth-century houses went up in red brick and tile, with timber framing, turrets and bargeboards, and the Victorian examples have gable roofs of tile or slate.

    Read more about Victorian houses in revived vernacular

    Gables, valleys and decorated verges give water more places in than a plain roof does.

Street map of Rusper, north of central Worthing, with a pin on the town.

Rules that sit over a Rusper roof

Planning authority
Horsham District Council
Councils
Horsham District Council and West Sussex County Council
Conservation area
Rusper Conservation Area, designated November 1976; boundary reviewed in the July 2023 appraisal
Article 4
None covers the conservation area
Parish church
St Mary Magdalene (Church of England)
From central Worthing
26 road miles, north, about 36 minutes by car

Rusper roofs

Weald clay, stone slabs and hung tile

Three roofing problems that follow from how Rusper's houses were framed, refaced and added to over the centuries.

Chapter one

Hung tile and weatherboard on refaced frames

A timber frame refaced in a later century has more joins between wall and roof than it was first built with.

Some of Rusper's humbler timber-framed buildings were refaced at a later date in brick, hanging tile or weatherboarding, as the Horsham District Council appraisal records. The refacing hides the frame, but it also hands the roof extra edges to seal, and those edges are where we start. Hanging tiles are small clay tiles hooked over battens on a wall, each held by a nib along its top edge. They overlap like a roof, so they shed rain the same way, yet they snap if stepped on and a slipped one is easy to miss from the lane. Where a tiled wall rises above a lower roof, a lead flashing, a folded strip cut into the wall and laid over the roof tiles, closes the gap. Once that strip lifts or splits, rainwater runs down behind the wall and turns up as a brown mark on a bedroom ceiling or a stair wall, a room away from the fault.

At a glance

  • Refaced frames add wall-to-roof junctions
  • Hanging tiles hook over battens on the wall
  • Lifted lead often stains a ceiling elsewhere

1.1 Weatherboard and the abutment

Weatherboarding makes a different kind of junction. The boards overlap one another, and the roof covering has to finish against them without leaving a pocket for water to sit in. On a survey we check the boards for open joints, then look at how the roof tiles tuck in beside them and whether the soakers, the small bent pieces of lead that sit between courses of tiles, are still in place. We also walk the gable ends. A verge, the edge of a roof where it stops at a gable wall, takes the worst of a gale, and a verge bedded in mortar alone can work loose over the years while looking sound from the road.

1.2 What the repair involves

Most of this is repair rather than renewal. We lift the affected hanging tiles, replace any with broken nibs using matching tiles, renew the lead where it has failed and dress it into a cut joint in the brickwork, not a bead of sealant. Photographs of each stage on your own wall are taken before the tiles go back, so you can see what was behind them. The wider roof is covered on our pitched roofing page. If the ceiling stain has been there for some time, we also check the timbers behind the wall for softness, because damp that has run unseen for several winters can reach a wall plate before anyone notices.

Following water behind wall tiles

  1. Look inside We begin under the roof, where a stain or a damp timber shows how far the water has travelled.
  2. Test the lead The flashing where the wall tiles meet the roof is checked for lift, splits and open ends.
  3. Lift tiles A handful of hanging tiles come off so we can see the battens and the back of the wall.
  4. Photograph, then quote What we found goes into photographs, with a written quote for the smallest fix that holds.

Chapter two

Horsham Stone, handmade tile and the 1976 conservation area

The village's oldest roofs keep their stone and handmade clay, so any repair starts by working out what the roof is built from.

Sussex flint church with a sweeping Horsham stone roof and lichen-covered slabs
Sussex flint church with a sweeping stone roof and lichen-covered slabs

Rusper's conservation area was designated in November 1976, and Horsham District Council revisited its boundary in a July 2023 appraisal and management plan. That document names Horsham Stone and handmade clay tile as the coverings on the oldest buildings. Horsham Stone is a flaggy, calcareous sandstone, split into slabs of many sizes. A stone roof is laid so the biggest slabs sit low and the slabs shrink steadily towards the ridge. When a slab cracks, the Stone Roofing Association wants the roof's own stone used again first, and cautions against slabs salvaged from other historic buildings. New Horsham stone, where a supplier has it, is its preferred top-up for what is missing. Reports from 2019 described a shortage of supply, so a stone repair can need planning well ahead.

At a glance

  • The conservation area dates from November 1976
  • A roof's own stone is reused before any new slab
  • The appraisal was reviewed in July 2023
Stacks of new handmade clay plain tiles on scaffold boards
Stacks of new handmade clay plain tiles on scaffold boards

2.1 Handmade tile and matching

A handmade clay tile is not a smaller cousin of a machine-made one. It carries a slight camber, its colour drifts between reds and browns, and it beds a little differently in each course. Mixing flat modern tiles into a roof of them shows from the road and can leave small gaps that wind works at. On a Rusper repair we go through the old tiles one at a time, keep the sound ones for the visible slopes, and use similar tiles of matching size and tone for the rest. For slabs rather than tiles, our Horsham stone roofing page explains the lifting, sorting and relaying.

Stacks of new handmade clay plain tiles on scaffold boards
Stacks of new handmade clay plain tiles on scaffold boards

2.2 Consent before you change anything

Putting back what is already there generally sits outside planning control. The questions begin when a covering changes, say from stone to tile, or when the house is listed. A repair in non-matching materials to a listed house can need listed building consent, so ask Horsham District Council before altering anything inside the conservation area, and check whether your house is on the list. St Mary Magdalene still serves as the parish church, and being Church of England, any roof repair is approved by faculty, the Church's separate permission route, and not by the council. Our roof planning permission guide covers what else to ask. A dated set of photographs taken before any strip-out gives the planning officer something concrete to read.

What people sayAnything done to a roof inside Rusper's conservation area has to go to the planning team first.

What is trueMending a roof with what is already on it is generally not a planning matter; the line is crossed by changing the covering or altering a listed building.

Chapter three

Bargeboards, valleys and the Victorian re-roof decision

Late Victorian additions brought gables and decoration to Rusper, and with them more valleys and joins than a plain roof carries.

The Victoria County History notes that new houses and alterations in the later nineteenth century were almost always in the revived vernacular, built in red brick and tile, with timber framing, turrets and bargeboards. The council appraisal adds that Victorian houses in the village have gable roofs of tile or slate. A gabled roof with a turret or a cross-wing has valleys, the channels formed where two slopes meet, and each valley is lined with lead or with purpose-made tiles. Bargeboards, the timber boards finishing a gable edge, are exposed on every side and tend to rot from the bottom upwards. A lead-lined valley can split along a fold. Tiles beside it can crack where a ladder or a fallen branch has caught them, and the first sign indoors is often a faint tide-mark on a ceiling after a wet week.

At a glance

  • Victorian houses here use tile or slate gables
  • Valleys and bargeboards add leak points
  • One failing valley rarely justifies a full strip
Lead-lined valley where two clay-tiled roof slopes meet
Lead-lined valley where two clay-tiled roof slopes meet

3.1 Repair or renew

Water entering at one valley or one bargeboard is a fault in one part of the roof, and a roof of this age with sound battens and sound tiles generally calls for repair. We tell you when renewal is the better answer, for instance where nails have rusted through on every slope or the battens crumble when probed with a screwdriver. Whichever it is, the quote arrives in writing with photographs of the roof itself, the old tiles leave site and the ground is swept before we go. Where renewal is right, our roof replacement page sets out the stages from scaffold to ridge.

Lead-lined valley where two clay-tiled roof slopes meet
Lead-lined valley where two clay-tiled roof slopes meet

3.2 What moves the price

The reach to a turret or a steep gable, the covering you pick, the length of valley and the state of the timber battens underneath all move the total. Ask whether a figure includes VAT, which a re-roof carries at 20 per cent, and whether the scaffold is in it. The ranges below come from national price guides and give a rough idea before the survey. For Rusper, a house with a cross-wing and a turret will sit nearer the upper end than a plain two-slope cottage, because every extra valley means more lead, more cutting and more time at height.

Typical UK costs for a Victorian-style roof

  • Moderate roof repair£500 to £1,000
  • Re-bedding ridge tiles£300 to £600
  • Re-slating a roof, per m²£100 to £180
  • Gable re-roof, semi£5,000 to £8,000

After the survey, a single written total takes the place of these bands, which serve only as a guide before that. Source: MyBuilder roof repair, slate roof and new roof price guides, updated 21/08/2026.

What a Rusper roof might need from us

Rusper roof questions, from stone slabs to hung tile

Can the Horsham Stone on an old Rusper house be relaid?

Often, yes. Slabs are lifted by hand, sorted into sizes and relaid on sound battens, large ones at the eaves. A split slab is replaced with new Horsham stone where a supplier has it, as stone stripped from other old buildings is best left alone. On a listed house, changing the stone for another covering can need consent from Horsham District Council, and new stone can mean a wait.

Why does a leak in a hung-tile cottage show up so far from the wall?

Water that gets behind hanging tiles or boards follows the timber frame down and sideways until it finds a gap, so the stain can sit a room away from the cause. The usual starting point is the flashing where the wall meets the roof, or a tile with a broken nib. We trace it from indoors first, then raise a handful of tiles to inspect the battens, and attach photographs to the quote.

Does the Rusper Conservation Area change who I ask before a re-roof?

Rusper's planning authority is Horsham District Council, with no National Park involved. Re-covering in the same material rarely calls for a planning application. Swapping materials, or owning a listed house, is the cue to raise it with the council first. Building Regulations are a separate matter: a larger re-roof can need a building control application, and where work is notifiable we handle the notification.

Is a Victorian gable on a Rusper house worth repairing or renewing?

That depends on what the survey shows, not on the date on the deeds. Faults gathered at a valley, along a bargeboard or around one chimney point to repair. Rusted nails and crumbling battens across every slope point to renewal. Our recommended option is named along with the reason for it, supported by pictures from your own roof, and the decision remains yours.

Roofers near Rusper

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