JM Tree Surgery & Fencing

Tree surgery and fencing in Winchelsea.

We work Winchelsea and the villages around it across TN36, from the hilltop town and Strand Gate down to Winchelsea Beach, Pett Level, Cliff End and Icklesham. Crown work on the ancient elms and oaks behind the Strand, exposed-aspect fencing on the Beach side, stump grinding, hedges, and close-board and post-and-rail built on site with properly treated posts. NPTC qualified, fully insured, and tidy when we leave. Winchelsea is small, quiet, and almost entirely conservation area, and the work has to fit that.

Get a quote Call 01424 000 000
Why hire local

Local matters

Winchelsea is the smallest place we work and one of the most particular. The whole hilltop town sits inside the conservation area boundary, the back gardens hold a mix of ancient elm, oak and sweet chestnut that have been there longer than most of the houses, and almost every job needs Section 211 paperwork before it starts. Some of the elms are still standing decades after Dutch elm disease, some have gone over to it; we treat them carefully either way. The wider TN36 catchment runs down off the hill to Winchelsea Beach, Pett Level and Cliff End, where the picture changes completely: open coastal aspect, wind off the Channel, and fencing that needs proper spec plus capping or it doesn't make five years.

Winchelsea falls under Rother District Council, the same authority as Battle, Bexhill and Rye. We know how to phrase a Section 211 notice for a TPO'd elm, we know which Strand-side gardens carry the older orders, and we know what the wind off Pett Level does to a south-facing close-board run. We turn up quietly, work quietly, and leave the place tidier than we found it. That tends to be what Winchelsea wants.

What we do

Work we do across Winchelsea

Tree surgery in Winchelsea

Crown reduction, thinning and lifting, sectional dismantling, felling where it's the right answer, stump grinding, hedge cutting and deadwooding. The Winchelsea book is heavier on ancient species than anywhere else we work: English oak and sweet chestnut in the gardens off the Strand, German Street and Castle Street, elms still standing in some of the older plots, hornbeam and beech in the larger gardens running down toward the church. Coastal-edge gardens at Winchelsea Beach and Cliff End take a different mix: holm oak, blackthorn windbreaks, hawthorn hedging on the field margins. We work to BS3998, check for nesting birds before we start between March and August, and file the Section 211 notice or TPO application with Rother District Council on your behalf. Almost every Winchelsea hilltop job needs paperwork; we do the paperwork.

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Fencing in Winchelsea

Close-board built on site, panel fencing where it suits, post and rail, picket, gates and repairs. Winchelsea splits cleanly into two fencing pictures. On the hilltop, gardens are larger and more sheltered, and a properly built close-board with properly treated posts and a capping rail goes the distance; the constraint is access through narrow gates and conservation-area sightlines. Down at Winchelsea Beach, Pett Level and Cliff End, you've got open Channel exposure, and the wind off the sea finishes a cheap fence inside five winters. We use properly treated posts concreted in, gravel boards at the base and capping along the top, because that's the spec that handles the salt and the south-westerly. Most of our coastal-side calls round here are replacements for runs that went up cheap a decade ago; we'll tell you honestly whether a repair will hold or whether the line has gone.

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TPOs, conservation areas and Section 211 notices

Trees in conservation areas

Almost the whole of Winchelsea hilltop sits inside the conservation area boundary: Strand Gate, German Street, Castle Street, Mill Road and the gardens running off them are all inside it. If a tree inside the conservation area is over 75mm in diameter at 1.5 metres off the ground, you generally need to file a Section 211 notice with Rother District Council before any work starts. The council has six weeks to respond. We file the notice for you, with the method, the species and the reason, and we wait the clock out before we put a saw in.

A Tree Preservation Order is a separate process and it's common round Winchelsea, partly because the older gardens carry orders on the surviving elms and the veteran oaks. A TPO'd tree needs a formal application to Rother, regardless of the diameter or whether the tree sits inside the conservation area. We handle that paperwork too. Most of the time the answer comes back as a consent with conditions, and we work to those conditions on the day. If you're not sure whether your tree is TPO'd, sitting in the conservation area, or both, send us the address and we'll check Rother's planning map before we quote.

Where we work

Areas we work

Across Winchelsea and the villages and districts around it. That covers:

Districts and nearby villages

  • Winchelsea Beach
  • Icklesham
  • Pett
  • Pett Level
  • Cliff End

Postcodes

  • TN36

Just outside? Call us anyway. We'll travel for the right job.

Reviews

What Winchelsea customers say

Had a close-board fence put up, about twelve metres with a gate. Properly treated posts concreted in, feather-edge, capping rail, the lot. Neat job, on time, cleared the old panels away. Recommended.
Claire M., Bexhill
We needed the front oak crown-reduced, TPO'd, and most people we asked wanted to talk us into felling. JM did the paperwork with Rother, reduced it properly, and it looks like they haven't been there. Worth the money.
David H., Battle

Got a tree or a fence in Winchelsea?

Send a photo on WhatsApp or fill in the quote form and we'll come and have a look. No charge for the visit, no hard sell.

Get a quote Call 01424 000 000