I thought the first thing you invented in England with all that rain was super-tight roofs ;-))

Ha ha, you should know that in England, the weather breaks everything. Especially the trains. The trains stop when:

• It's too hot
• It's too windy (leaves get blown onto the track)
• It's too wet
• It's too cold
• It snows.

So no matter what weather my roof was prepared for (a warm, sunny day), my roof would probably break!

how damp are the beams now...?

Part of the problem is that I don't know. There's no access to that loft space which is why it was difficult to locate the problem. I've got a dehumidifier running in the room in the hope of drying things out but without smashing a hole in the (relatively) new ceiling, I'll never know 😟