St Michael's church
Listed Grade I on 22 February 1955; as a working Anglican church it answers to the faculty process.
Roofers in Gittisham
Beaumont Cottages, a Grade I church and a walled garden barn
Gittisham has 29 listed buildings within 500 metres of its centre, a conservation area and a place in the East Devon National Landscape. We survey every roof first.
Beaumont Cottages, St Michael's and Pomeroy House
Beaumont Cottages
1 and 2, and 3 and 4, Beaumont Cottages are all listed Grade II.
Pomeroy House walled garden
A barn, an outbuilding and walls north of Pomeroy House are listed Grade II.
Street map of Gittisham with Honiton, Feniton, Ottery St Mary, Payhembury marked around it, and Taunton.
Honiton to the north-east, Ottery St Mary south-west
Honiton lies north-east of Gittisham, Feniton and Whimple to the west, Payhembury and Broadhembury to the north-west, and Ottery St Mary and West Hill to the south-west.
About 17 miles south of Taunton, East Devon District Council and Devon County Council.
Four checks in a listed village
Gittisham roofs: cottages, church, flood map and access
Four things that shape a roof job in a small Devon village packed with listings, with the consent route and the price effect of each.
Check 1 of 4Beaumont Cottages and St Michael's
Check who consents before you order
For a village of 826 residents, Gittisham carries a lot of protection. The National Heritage List has 29 entries within 500 metres of the centre. St Michael's church is Grade I, and 1 and 2 Beaumont Cottages were listed on the very day the church was, 22 February 1955. 3 and 4 Beaumont Cottages are Grade II too, as are a barn, an outbuilding and walls north of Pomeroy House. A conservation area reaches to within about 0.75 km of the centre. Put together, most conversations about a Gittisham roof begin with consent. That is no reason to put a repair off. A leaking cottage roof gets worse every winter, and the right consent route is usually clear within a phone call or two.
Who agrees to work on a cottage roof?
On a listed cottage, alterations to its special character call for listed building consent from East Devon District Council, whether or not planning permission is also required. Repairs in matching material cause the fewest arguments, and a good record of what is there now helps everyone. A switch to a different slate, a new roof window or a changed ridge is where applications draw questions. The owner applies, and we supply the photographs and the written description of the covering that make a decision easier.
Does St Michael's follow the same route?
No. St Michael's still holds Anglican worship, which means the parish, not the council, begins the faculty process for its roof. Churches that have closed, and chapels converted to houses, come back under the council's consent. Either way we work to a scheme once it is approved, and we never begin ahead of it.
Outbuildings matter too. A roof on the barn by Pomeroy House can be covered by its listing along with the walls, so a repair is not always as simple as it looks from the lane. Our page on planning permission for roof work covers the general rules.
Look for
- Hard cement beside old stone
- Modern tiles among old
- Skylights on a lane slope
- A ridge in a new style
Check 2 of 4A cottage chimney, ridge and flashing
Three joints that fail first
On a cottage roof, water usually gets in through the joints round the top of the building. The chimney stack has three: the flaunching, a mortar collar that fixes the pots, the lead flashing, folded lead that closes the gap between stack and slope, and the pointing between stones or bricks. The ridge, the capping along the peak, has its own bed, and the pointing and bedding on a cottage that has stood for generations has usually been patched more than once. None of these fails loudly. A stain on the bedroom ceiling next to the chimney breast is the usual first notice.
What decides the price
- Condition of the flashing and pointing
- Whether pots need re-bedding
- Ridge style and consent needs
- Access to the stack
Can old lead flashing be saved?
Often. Lead flashing can last for over 80 years, a lower bound, so a leak at an old stack is more likely to come from lifted edges or loose pointing than from tired metal. If the sheet is sound, we lift it, repoint the joint and dress it back, and the owner keeps original material. A cracked or thinned sheet is the case for replacing it, and the photographs show you which you have.
Should the ridge be re-bedded in mortar?
Marley says that since BS 5534 was revised in 2014, the grip of mortar on its own is no longer treated as enough for ridge and hip tiles, so a ridge that is re-bedded now gets mechanical fixings too. BS 5534 describes good practice without being statute. On a listed cottage the style of the ridge may need consent, so we ask before ordering. Our chimney repairs page goes through the work.
Does the National Landscape change a repair?
The East Devon National Landscape, once an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, covers Gittisham, and the rename changed nothing in law. It affects planning for bigger alterations such as dormers, which is a question for East Devon District Council's planning team.
Sound or needs work
- Sound: lead tight into stack joints
- Needs work: lifted lead, open pointing
Check 3 of 4Rain, drains and a Zone 3 centre
Moving rain off the roof quickly
On the Environment Agency's planning map, Gittisham's mapped centre point falls in Flood Zone 3. That is a statement about the ground, and it tells you nothing about the roof over your head. A postcode search on GOV.UK's long-term flood risk checker is the right place for an answer about one address. The roof has a narrower task: get rain off itself and into the drains without delay. That task falls to gutters, downpipes and whatever flat section the house has.
The flood map describes the land, but the gutters decide where this roof's rain goes.
From the ground
- Notice which joints drip in rain
- Look for green streaks below gutters
- Check each downpipe empties freely
- Spot puddles lingering on flat roofs
Leave to a roofer
- Resetting sagging gutter lengths
- Cutting out soft fascia boards
- Freeing a blocked flat roof outlet
- Clearing moss by gentle methods
Why does the same corner of my gutter keep overflowing?
A choked outlet, a loose coupling or a sagging run is usually behind it. Brett Martin gives 1 mm of fall for every 600 mm of gutter, which leaves little room for error when one bracket drops and water settles in the run. We find the bracket that moved and fix that, rather than replacing a sound gutter. Plastic and cast iron both sag in different ways, and an old iron run that is rusting through is a different decision from a plastic one that has simply lost its fall. Gutters hang from fascia boards, and soffits close the gap under the eaves, so we test both for rot before refitting anything. Moss that builds up on the roof washes down into the gutters and clogs them, which is one reason cleaning counts. Our roof cleaning page explains how we do it.
How should a flat roof drain?
BS 6229:2025 sets a finished fall of 1:80, and IKO advises designing for 1:40. Water that lingers after a shower points to a lost fall, a choked outlet or a dipped deck, and the survey says which before any covering is priced. On cleaning, Marley advises against high-powered jet washes for roofs, and HSE says the general public should never use biocides intended for professionals only.
Check 4 of 4Devon licence, wildlife and one price
Notice, nesting and a written total
Put scaffold on a public lane or pavement, and section 169 of the Highways Act 1980 wants a licence first. Devon County Council issues them to scaffolding firms applying for their customers. The licence costs £158 and 10 working days is the minimum notice. It runs for the works dates up to 12 weeks, and a change or extension costs £100. Poles that stay inside your boundary are off the highway, and a modest repair might need only a ladder, with no licence at all.
When would a re-roof involve building control?
Under the Planning Portal test, work touching under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof does not normally need an application. A covering 15 per cent or more heavier needs Building Regulations approval and a structural check. Ask your building control body if you are unsure which side of that line you stand on, and we will explain what we know of the covering weights involved.
What about nests and bats under the eaves?
The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 protects an active nest from intentional harm. Bats are a bigger issue, since GOV.UK reports their roosts as fully protected and lists roof repair as an activity that can affect them. Old roofs in a village like this are where such tenants turn up, and a bat roost found halfway through a job halts the work while advice is sought, so the eaves and ridge are inspected at the survey and the start date is planned around what is found. If a leak cannot wait, our emergency roof repairs make the roof safe first.
When the survey is done, a set of pictures of the roof arrives, followed by one written price covering the whole job. Pass on your Gittisham address and a word about the trouble, and we fix the visit.
What decides the price
- Whether the highway is occupied
- Weeks the roof stays open
- Nesting or bat checks in the eaves
- Weight of any new covering
Walked the roof?
- 1 read
- 2 not read yet
- 3 not read yet
- 4 not read yet
When you have read the checks, we walk the roof and show you the photos.
Gittisham roofs, from Beaumont Cottages to the barn
Can a barn roof at Pomeroy House in Gittisham be re-covered without consent?
The barn, outbuilding and walls north of Pomeroy House are listed Grade II, so work that affects their character needs listed building consent from East Devon District Council. Like-for-like repairs are simpler. Switching to a different material is the kind of change that raises questions. Survey photographs of the barn give the council a clear view of the present covering.
Who approves roof repairs to St Michael's church in Gittisham?
St Michael's carries a Grade I listing and is a working Anglican church. Church of England rules send roof proposals through the faculty system rather than to the council for listed building consent. The parish petitions, and once the scheme is issued, the roofer builds to it. Survey photographs of the existing roof help the parish describe the work it is asking to do.
Does the flood map affect how I should repair my Gittisham gutters?
Flood Zone 3 covers the mapped centre point of the village, but it describes land and not a roof. What matters for gutters is capacity and fall. A run with 1 mm of fall for every 600 mm sheds rain properly. We reset sagging lengths and check the fascia boards behind them for rot, which is where a long-running overflow does its damage.
Will the East Devon National Landscape stop me fitting a rooflight?
The designation is not a ban, but it does tighten planning control on bigger alterations such as dormers. A rooflight is a smaller step, though a listing or an Article 4 direction can still require consent. Ask East Devon District Council's planning team about your address, and we will check the roof structure can take the opening.
Honiton, Feniton and the villages around
Have a Gittisham roof surveyed
Tell us which Gittisham roof is giving trouble, and we will arrange a survey and photograph what we find.