Baldock West and East houses looking up with rooflights and skylights
A market town founded by the Knights Templar in the 1140s, with a railway to London and Cambridge: here is how to bring daylight into a Baldock house from straight above.
A medieval street plan and a ring of newer streets
Baldock is a market town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire. The Knights Templar laid it out as a market town in the 1140s, on ground that had been settled since the Iron Age and later became a sizeable Roman settlement. The district council splits the town in two along the A507, into Baldock East and Baldock West, and the homes on either side ask for different things from a roof.
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Houses in Baldock West and around the town centre
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Newer estates in Baldock East, including Clothall Common
West of the A507 is the town centre, with the market-town street plan that has grown up over nine centuries. Houses here stand close together, rooms behind the street front are deep and the plots behind them are narrow, with walls and outbuildings close to the glass. Where a roof falls inside the conservation area, or where the building is listed, a conservation rooflight is the sympathetic choice, with a slim frame set low in the slope. The town's listed buildings include a Grade I building, so it is worth asking the council before assuming that your own roof is free of constraints.
To the east of the town sits a large residential estate built in several phases, with Clothall Common among its neighbourhoods. Houses of this kind carry loft conversions, rear extensions and garage conversions, and the roofs are simpler to work with than a medieval frontage. A roof window brings a loft to life, a flat rooflight suits an extension roof, and a roof lantern suits a kitchen that has outgrown its single window. Each of these roofs is a clean canvas by comparison with an old frontage, and the survey can be settled in a single visit.
Two Baldock rooms, two ways to look up
The terrace room faces a high wall
A town garden is often a courtyard in all but name.
Sideways
A town house on an old street plan has a garden that is less a lawn than a terrace. It is bounded by a brick wall on at least one side, perhaps two, and the wall belongs to the neighbour as much as to you. The doors to the terrace face it, and the room behind them takes its light from a strip of sky above the wall.
In winter, with the sun low, the wall throws a shadow across the terrace for the whole of the day. The room looks out at brick, and the brick looks back. A glass door is a generous opening, but a door facing a wall can only collect what the wall allows.
The same goes for the windows on the flank. They were small when the house was built, they are small now, and they face a surface only a metre or two away.
Straight up
A flat rooflight in the roof of the room raises the daylight source above the wall line, into the open sky. The glass sits on an upstand with a slight fall for drainage, and it looks upwards, so what stands at the boundary matters far less.
A long room suits two or three rooflights in a line, spaced to even out the light along its length. A square room suits a single larger pane, centred on the middle of the floor. The wall keeps its privacy, the terrace keeps its table, and the room gains a brightness that does not rely on the angle of the sun. It also helps in the evening, when the garden is dark and the walls are cold: a lit ceiling makes the room feel open instead of shut in.
Size and position are worked out at the survey, with the room and the wall in front of us. The quote that follows is fixed, and does not change on the day.
A flat-roofed extension on a town house is one of the simplest roofs to glaze, because the structure is already designed to carry a flat covering. The rooflight replaces a section of that covering and the upstand is built around it, so the work stays tidy and the rest of the roof is left alone.
Questions to settle before the survey
- How tall is the wall, and which way does it face?
- Is the roof flat, or does it have a slight pitch?
- How deep is the room from the doors?
- Does the room need to open for ventilation?
An extension that lives under a tree
The extension was built for light and then a tree grew.
Sideways
A rear extension is designed to take a family kitchen out into the garden. Glass doors across the back, a table by the glass, the garden beyond. Then the tree at the end of the plot grows, or a neighbour's tree overhangs the boundary, and the glass that was meant to catch the sun catches a canopy.
In summer the room is cool and green but dim. In winter the branches are bare and the light is better, but the sun is low and the room reaches out for it only at the doors. At any season the back of the room, nearest the house, is the darkest part.
Moving the table forward is not a fix. It is a surrender.
Straight up
A roof lantern raises glass above the roof line in the middle of the room. Each face of the lantern takes light from a different part of the sky, so it still lights the room when the doors sit in shade. The ceiling inside the lantern opens the room upwards as well, which helps a kitchen with a low flat roof feel taller.
For a smaller room or a lower ceiling, a large flat rooflight does a similar job with a lower profile. The two are close relatives, and the survey weighs them against your roof structure and your ceiling height.
Both bring the same promise. The view overhead is the one that a tree at the end of the garden cannot block, and the room lights up even when the garden is in shade.
Glass in a roof has to meet the energy rules for existing homes, and the figures are worth knowing before you compare quotes.
Energy and escape limits for roof glazing
- 1.4 W/m²K
- heat loss ceiling for a roof window in an existing home, or WER band B
- 2.2 W/m²K
- heat loss ceiling for a rooflight in an existing home
- 4.5 m
- highest floor above ground where a window can serve as an escape route
Planning in Baldock: North Hertfordshire District Council
Baldock's planning decisions are made by North Hertfordshire District Council, which lists a Baldock Conservation Area on its conservation areas page. Inside a conservation area, permitted development stays unless an Article 4 direction has been made, so put the question to the council's planning team.
Listed buildings follow a different path. Changes to the roof of a listed house need listed building consent, and the town's listed buildings include a Grade I building. If your house is listed, speak to the council before you plan.
Our planning guide sets out the rules for ordinary roof glazing. The council's planning page handles questions about a specific address, and its building control page covers the regulations. Where the work is notifiable, we handle the Building Control notification.
The drive east from Milton Keynes
Going east from Milton Keynes, the road to Baldock covers 29.0 miles in about 40 minutes. A survey visit sets aside a morning or an afternoon, and an installation is planned as a working day on site with the crew arriving at the start.
Letchworth, Stotfold and Arlesey are the nearby places we also work in. Baldock has a railway station on the line between London Kings Cross and Cambridge, which runs as part of the Thameslink route, but we travel by road with our equipment so you do not need to plan around trains.
The town sits on the A507, which divides Baldock East from Baldock West. Tell us at booking which side you are on and whether parking is limited on your street, and the crew will plan its arrival around it.
Choosing between the town roofs and the estate roofs
Houses near the centre of Baldock come in a range of ages and shapes, and the right rooflight follows the roof. A slope facing the street in a conservation setting suits a conservation rooflight. A rear slope that nobody sees from the road can take a larger roof window. A flat-roofed extension can carry a flat rooflight or a lantern.
On the estate to the east, loft conversions are the natural starting point. A roof window gives a bedroom daylight and a view of the sky, and a pair across a wide slope gives a larger room an even spread. For a landing or a bathroom, a small window or a sun tunnel brings in light without taking up wall.
Whatever the roof, the principle stays the same. Side windows look at walls, fences and trees; the sky overhead is clear.
Baldock has been a place of settlement for a very long time. The River Ivel rises from springs in the town, an Iron Age oppidum once stood in the vicinity and the Romans built on the same ground. Roofs that sit on that history deserve a careful look from above, and a careful look is what the survey gives them: the covering, the timbers, the junction with the neighbours and the line of the gutter.
Plan the order of work with the house in mind. A loft conversion is best glazed before the plastering and decorating, so the lining and the finish are done once. An extension is simplest to glaze while the roof is still being built, but a roof that is already finished can take a rooflight without drama. If you are redecorating anyway, tell us, and we will schedule the fitting ahead of the paint.
Your free survey in Baldock
The survey is free. We check the roof covering, the structure beneath it and the room we are lighting, and we measure the opening you have in mind. You then receive a fixed written quote that does not change on the day, with fitting covered by a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing.
Every job is built to the current Building Regulations, with the inside left finished. To book, message us on WhatsApp on 07880 284133, email info@vertexskylightsmiltonkeynes.co.uk or use the form below. Residential work comes first, and small commercial jobs are welcome.
Baldock questions, answered
Will a rooflight help a room that faces a high garden wall?
Yes. The rooflight takes its light from above the wall line, so the wall stops deciding how bright the room is. A flat rooflight or a lantern in the extension roof gives the room an even spread across the floor, however tall the boundary stands.
Is Baldock in a conservation area?
North Hertfordshire District Council lists a Baldock Conservation Area. Ask its planning team if your street lies inside, and whether an Article 4 direction applies. The area does not by itself remove permitted development.
How far is Baldock from your base?
The town is east of Milton Keynes by 29.0 road miles, about 40 minutes by car. That is close enough for a survey on a weekday morning and an installation planned as a normal working day.
Should I choose a lantern or a flat rooflight for my extension?
A lantern suits a large room with a tall enough ceiling to enjoy the extra height. A flat rooflight suits a narrower room or a lower ceiling. We compare both against your roof at the survey and put the options in the written quote.
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