Every Cornerstone roofing project carries a 10-year insurance-backed warranty, alongside the relevant material guarantee from the manufacturer.
Reliable, high-quality work before, during, and after the scaffold comes down.
Hassocks sits at the foot of the South Downs, just south of Burgess Hill, and grew up around its railway station into the busy commuter village it is today. That history shows in the roofs: rather than a historic core, Hassocks is mostly inter-war and post-war housing, with long runs of semis and estate homes carrying concrete and clay tile. Cornerstone has worked as a roofer in Hassocks for 35+ years, and every job is backed by our 10-year insurance-backed warranty.
We cover the full range across Hassocks: pitched and flat roofs, roof repairs, fascias and soffits, guttering, leadwork and chimney work. With so much of the village built in the twentieth century, a lot of local roofs are now reaching the age where the original tiles, felt underlay and leadwork need attention at the same time, which is where a proper survey pays off. Site visits to look over a roof are free and carry no obligation.
Most Hassocks roofs are pitched and tiled, typically concrete interlocking tile on the post-war estates and plain clay tile on the older inter-war houses. After decades of weather the usual issues are porous or delaminating concrete tiles, perished sarking felt at the eaves, and tired ridge bedding. Our pitched roof installers will re-cover a whole roof where the tiles have had their day, or carry out matched repairs where they have not, always checking the battens and underlay before deciding. Newer extensions and loft conversions across the village we spec to sit cleanly against the existing roofline.
Shingles are an overlapping, single-thickness covering laid in courses across a sound deck. They depend on the underlay, the deck condition, and a ventilated batten cavity behind the visible covering. Get any of those wrong and the lifespan drops sharply.
Natural slate is a generational roof covering. Properly laid on fresh battens, with a breathable underlay and sound lead flashings, a slate roof will outlast most owners. We cover slate repairs, slate replacement, and full re-slate work across Mid Sussex.
Stone is a heavy traditional roof covering. The slates are graded by size and laid in diminishing courses (largest at the eaves, smallest at the ridge), which loads the supporting timbers significantly more than a tiled equivalent. Any stone-roofed enquiry calls for a structural survey of the deck and timbers before a quote.
Tile is the most common pitched covering across Sussex. Clay tile (handmade or machine-made) and concrete tile (interlocking or profile) both feature widely on the local stock. Tile lifespan is generally longer than the underlay beneath it, which means a roof can still look sound from the street while the underlay has reached the end of its life. We cover tile repairs, re-bedding of ridges, tile replacement, and full re-covers across Mid Sussex.
Flat roofing in Hassocks is mostly small roofs doing important jobs. The village filled out around the station with interwar semis and post-war estates, and that stock came with garages, porch canopies and single-storey rear extensions, nearly all of them flat. Plenty are still on their original built-up felt, so when water shows up on a garage ceiling or in a back room, the flat roof is the first thing worth checking rather than the pitched roof above it.
A small span is not automatically a simple job. Falls are shallow, one outlet tends to do all the work, and the weak points are the upstands and the abutment where the flat roof meets the house wall. Our flat roofing team works in EPDM, GRP, built-up felt, single-ply and liquid systems, and chooses between them on span, access, drainage and whether anyone needs to walk on the finished surface.
Common flat roof problems on Hassocks properties:
Where the covering still has life in it and the deck underneath is sound, a roof repair is the right answer, and that is what we will quote for. Our guide to flat roof repairs across Sussex covers what that involves. Every flat roof we lay or repair carries our 10-year insurance-backed warranty.
Modern reinforced multi-layer torch-on felt is a long way from the single-layer felt that gave the material its older reputation. Properly specified, with metal trims and drips at every edge, it gives a watertight finish well into 20-year territory. Felt remains the most economical like-for-like replacement for an existing felt flat roof.
EPDM is a synthetic rubber membrane sold by the roll and laid as a single sheet across most domestic flat roofs. One sheet means no overlaps and no welded joints to fail later. Lifespan comfortably reaches 25 years and beyond on a properly prepared deck.
Green roofs turn a flat surface into planting, additional thermal insulation, and drainage attenuation. They need a sound waterproof base underneath (typically EPDM or a bituminous build-up), proper drainage outlets, and a structural assessment of the supporting joists or deck because the loaded weight is significantly higher than a standard flat finish.
GRP (glass-reinforced plastic, often called fibreglass roofing) is laid wet over a sound deck and cures into a single seamless skin. It’s strong enough to be walked on and available in a range of finishes. Lifespan typically reaches 25 years and beyond on a properly prepared substrate.
Liquid coatings give a continuous, joint-free skin across complex roof details, including parapet cappings, roof-light or vent penetrations, and abutments where a flat meets a pitched tile. They can also be applied as a recoat over an existing failing membrane that’s otherwise structurally sound, which extends the roof’s life without a full strip-out. Most modern liquid systems are vapour-permeable and UV-stable.
Single-ply membrane comes as factory-made synthetic sheets, fixed mechanically, fully bonded, or held in place by ballast, with joints heat-welded on site. Long sheet widths reduce the number of seams on larger flat areas. Lifespan is comparable to EPDM when properly installed.
The roof repairs we are called to most in Hassocks reflect the age of the housing: slipped and porous concrete tiles, perished felt at the eaves letting water past the gutter line, cracked ridge bedding, and worn lead around chimneys and soil pipes. We inspect properly before quoting, so you are not paying for a re-cover when roof repair work will do, or patching a roof that has genuinely come to the end of its life. Active leaks are made safe first, then booked in for a lasting fix, all under our 10-year insurance-backed warranty.
Whether a Hassocks roof needs replacing usually comes down to a single question: can the existing tiles go back on? The village is mostly inter-war and post-war housing with long runs of concrete interlocking tile, and concrete tile has a habit of outlasting everything fixed beneath it. Where the tiles are still sound, a re-cover reuses them. Where they have started to delaminate, flake or lose their surface, they cannot go back and the job becomes a full replacement.
Telling those two apart from ground level is difficult, so we get on the roof and check rather than guess. A tile that has gone porous takes up water, grows heavier, and breaks up under frost, and a roof covered in them will keep producing slipped and cracked tiles however many individual repairs are done to it.
Re-cover or full replacement on a Hassocks roof:
Either way the underlay and battens are renewed, because those are the parts that have actually failed. Our pitched roof systems page covers the coverings themselves, and our roof replacement team handles the survey, the access and the finished roof.
Alongside main roof work we handle leadwork, guttering, fascias and soffits, and chimney repairs across Hassocks. On twentieth-century housing the original fascias, soffits and guttering are often the first parts of the roof to show their age, and replacing them in modern low-maintenance materials tidies the whole roofline. While we are set up on a roof we will flag anything else that needs doing, since combining the work into one visit keeps the cost down.
For roofs of the age you find across Hassocks, the real skill is knowing when a roof can be repaired and when it is genuinely due for replacement, and quoting straight either way. As a roofer in Hassocks, Cornerstone brings 35+ years of experience across Mid Sussex, including a UK Roofing Awards 2025 Finalist project, and a 10-year insurance-backed warranty on every roof. Knowing when to repair and when to replace, and saying so honestly, is what sets our work apart.
Hassocks is a large village at the foot of the South Downs, just south of Burgess Hill and within easy reach of the National Park, the Clayton windmills and Ditchling Beacon. It grew rapidly around the railway in the twentieth century, so its housing is mainly inter-war and post-war, with plenty of tiled semis and estate homes. Roofs of that age tend to reach the point of needing repair or replacement at a similar time, which is much of the roofing work we do across the village.
