East Grinstead High Street holds the longest continuous run of fourteenth-century timber-framed buildings in England. Nineteen timber-framed houses survive from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with another thirteen from the Tudor and Stuart periods, in an almost unbroken line along a street that was laid out as a medieval market place. That is a remarkable thing to have in a town centre. It is also a specific scaffolding problem, and it is not one that a standard approach solves. STAK Scaffold covers East Grinstead and the surrounding parts of Sussex and Surrey from a yard in Caterham, about twelve miles north.
A conventional scaffold relies on ties into the building. Drill, fix, tie, repeat. On a solid masonry wall that is straightforward.
A timber-framed building has no such wall. The structure is a frame of oak posts and beams with infill panels between them, and those panels, whether wattle and daub, lath and plaster, or later brick nogging, are not structural. They are filling a hole. A tie fixed into an infill panel is fixed into nothing that will hold.
The frame itself is load bearing, but it is also the historic fabric, it is often five or six hundred years old, and putting new fixings into it is exactly what listed building consent exists to control.
So the design starts somewhere else entirely. The usual answer is a structure that needs fewer ties or none at all, standing independently and taking its own stability from its base and its bracing rather than from the building. That means a wider footprint, more bracing, and more thought at the design stage than a terraced house on the edge of town would need.
Jettied upper floors, which are common on buildings of this age, add another wrinkle. The upper storey overhangs the lower one, so the scaffold has to be set out to clear the jetty and still give a usable working platform at the level where the work is.
The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and Historic England both publish guidance on working with historic timber frames, and the underlying principle in both is the same one that governs the scaffold: do as little as possible to the original fabric, and reverse what you do.
The same problem turns up across this whole part of Surrey and Sussex, because the Weald is full of it. Framed farmhouses, converted barns, hall houses and cottages with later brick or render skins hiding an oak frame underneath.
STAK Scaffold designs independent and partially tied scaffolds for these buildings anywhere in the region, not just in East Grinstead. If you have a listed or timber-framed property and a builder has told you the scaffold is a problem, it usually is not. It is a design question rather than an obstacle, and it is worth a survey before assuming the work cannot be reached.
The approach scales up as well as sideways. On the Harrods facade in Knightsbridge, no new drilling was permitted anywhere on the elevation, so every tie went into an existing mortar joint or a previous tie hole and bespoke anchors were engineered where the fabric would not take a conventional fixing. Different material, same discipline.
Where the building is listed, listed building consent may be required before anything is fixed into the fabric. That is a planning matter and it sits with Mid Sussex District Council for East Grinstead.
Highway licensing is a different authority again, and this catches people out. Sussex is a two-tier area, so the district council handles planning but the highway authority is West Sussex County Council. If any part of the scaffold sits on a public road or pavement, and on the High Street it almost certainly will, the licence comes from West Sussex County Council rather than from Mid Sussex.
West Sussex requires a minimum of 10 working days notice from application to the date the scaffold goes up, and contractors are required to notify the council as soon as the scaffolding is removed.
Two separate authorities, two separate applications, two separate timescales. On a High Street job both need starting well before the build does. STAK handles the highway licence as part of the job.
Most work here is not medieval. The town has a large stock of Victorian and Edwardian housing, substantial interwar and post-war residential areas, and modern estates on the edges.
Domestic. Reroofing and roof repair, chimney work, extensions, loft conversions, rendering and external decoration. On the newer stock this is straightforward access scaffolding with conventional ties.
Commercial. Retail and office frontages in the town centre, industrial and trade units around the edges, and access scaffolding for refurbishment where the business stays open throughout.
Temporary roofing. For reroofing and structural repair, and particularly worth specifying on a period building, where getting water into an exposed timber frame or a lath and plaster ceiling causes damage that costs far more than the roof did.
This is the part worth understanding before comparing two quotes, because on a protected building they may not be quoting the same structure.
On a straightforward modern property, access and duration move the price. On a listed or timberframed one, the design does. An independent scaffold standing on its own feet uses considerably more material than a tied one, needs a wider footprint, takes longer to erect and needs more bracing. None of that is padding. It is what reaching the work costs when you cannot fix into the building.
A cheaper quote on the same building usually means someone is planning to tie into it. On a frame that is five hundred years old and listed, that is not a saving, it is a problem deferred.
The survey therefore does real work here. Whether the structure will take a tie, and where, cannot be answered from a photograph, and it determines the whole design and the whole price.
Two regimes run at once on this kind of job and they are easy to confuse. The construction side is standard: erection in accordance with the Work at Height Regulations 2005, BS EN 12811 and HSE guidance, following TG20 and SG4, with written sign-off before handover and re-inspection through the hire. The heritage side is not standard, and it is where the care goes. What gets fixed, where, and how it comes off again without leaving a mark. On a listed building the scaffold has to be reversible in a way it does not on a modern house. Behind both sit ConstructionLine and ConstructionLine Social Value registration, SafeContractor approval, SSIP through Acclaim and DTS, Alcumus SafePQQ, Environment Agency registration and Scaffolding Association membership.
Yes, but not with a conventional tied scaffold. The infill panels between the timbers are not structural and will not hold a tie, and fixing into the frame itself is what listed building consent controls. The usual solution is an independent scaffold that takes its stability from its own base and bracing rather than from the building.
West Sussex County Council. Sussex is two-tier, so Mid Sussex District Council handles planning and listed building consent, but the county council is the highway authority and issues the scaffold licence.
A minimum of 10 working days from the application to the date the scaffold goes up. Contractors also have to notify the council as soon as the scaffold is removed.
Possibly, where anything is being fixed into the fabric of a listed building. It is a separate application from the highway licence and it goes to Mid Sussex District Council. Worth establishing before anything is ordered
A jetty is where an upper floor overhangs the one below, common on medieval timber-framed buildings. The scaffold has to be set out to clear the overhang while still giving a usable working platform at the level the work is happening.
Usually yes. Water getting into an exposed timber frame or a lath and plaster ceiling does damage that costs considerably more to put right than the roof work itself.
Yes, along with Felbridge, Ashurst Wood, Dormansland and Crawley Down.
Every quote starts with a free site survey. On a period or listed building that visit is not a formality, because whether the structure will take a tie determines the whole design.
Call the office on 01883 330188, or email office@stakscaffold.co.uk with a few details about the job. Lee (07802387774) and Jack (07522676940) both take calls directly if it’s easier to speak to someone on site.
