Houses by Flitton's ironstone church take skylights and rooflights
Flitton takes its name from the River Flit, and its church is built of local ironstone. Daylight from above suits both the old village roofs and the newer extensions.
Older lanes and brick additions
Flitton is a village in the civil parish of Flitton and Greenfield, in the Central Bedfordshire district. It sits close to the river that gave it its name. Two kinds of home ask for two different kinds of rooflight.
The parish was reshaped in 1985, when Flitton and Greenfield became one civil parish, and the hamlet of Greenfield was drawn wholly inside it. Roofs old and new sit within that boundary, which is why a single recipe never fits.
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Older houses near the ironstone church
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Brick homes with a kitchen or garden room added
The church is the best-known building in the village, with a tower, a south porch and walls of local ironstone. If yours is one of them, the roof is likely to be steeper and more irregular than a modern pitch, and the rooms beneath it small. A slim conservation rooflight follows the line of the covering, keeps the roofline calm and sends a clear shaft of light into a landing or a bedroom that has nothing but a low window. The village has a conservation area, so the council should be asked before you commit.
Think about what is under the covering before the glass goes in. Older roof timbers were cut to suit the building, not a catalogue, and the surveyor checks the spacing of every rafter so the opening can be framed properly.
Beyond the older lanes, a house with a later extension is a different puzzle. A single-storey kitchen or garden room is wide, low and sometimes only a few metres from a boundary or a mature tree, so the glazed doors light one end and the rest of the room waits. Glazing in the extension roof fixes that: either a flat rooflight for a low ceiling or a taller roof lantern where there is height to spare. Up in a loft room, a roof window performs the same service, looking up to open sky where a gable window would only see the neighbouring house.
A light well from the roof through to the ceiling is part of the job in a loft room, and we finish it neatly so the plaster, the lining and the glass look like one piece of work.
Before choosing between the flat unit, the lantern and the roof window, the surveyor looks at how the extension roof is built, how much headroom the ceiling allows and where the room loses its light, so the glass is sized for the room rather than picked from a list. The quote then names the exact unit, the finish inside and the date the work can start.
Two Flitton rooms, lit from the top
A kitchen shaded by a tree
The leaves look lovely in July and block the light in all but the brightest weeks.
Sideways
A village garden suits a tall tree. It might be an old apple, an oak at the boundary or a neighbour's conifer, and it throws a long shade across the back of the house. The kitchen window, which sits right under the branches, gets a green-grey half-light for much of the year.
The room can be handsome and still feel like evening at lunchtime. Moving the window does not help, because every side of the house has a view of something. The fix lies above the leaves rather than beside them.
Straight up
Glass set into the extension roof, whether a lantern or a low-profile flat unit, looks over the top of the branches. The sky sits higher than the tree, and a kitchen worktop or a table placed under the glass receives it directly. A lantern has height and glazed faces, which suits a large room. A flat unit is plainer and suits a room where the ceiling is low.
If the tree is deciduous, the light changes through the year, and the roof glass gives you the winter sky as well as the summer.
Position matters more than size. A rooflight placed over the cooking area serves the work being done there, and one placed over the dining end serves the evening meal. The surveyor will stand in the room with you and mark both out in chalk so you can judge the effect before a quote is written.
If you cook beneath the glass, look at the options for opening units as well. An electric opening rooflight lets steam and warm air leave the room, and it closes at the touch of a control.
One practical point about trees: a rooflight does not pull a tree out of the picture, it simply ignores it. Leaf fall, bird droppings and moss on the glass are part of any garden roof, and a smooth pane with a gentle fall clears itself in rain. Keep branches trimmed back from the roof edge, as you would for gutters, and the glass stays bright.
Questions for the kitchen visit
- Where do you stand to work?
- Does a tree shade the garden doors?
- Is the roof flat or pitched?
- Would you like fresh air from above?
- How high is the ceiling?
A garden room beside a blank wall
Glass doors face the garden, yet the room runs deeper than the daylight.
Sideways
Where an extension runs along a party wall or a garage side, one wall has no glass at all. The side nearest the house gets nothing from the doors, so the far corner is a dark seat that nobody wants to sit in.
Adding a window to a wall that faces another wall only trades one shadow for another. A high window might look at brickwork a metre away, and the view is no better than a closed blind.
It is a particular kind of gloom: bright enough to read by at the doors, too grey to read by at the back, and never quite worth putting the lamps on until it is nearly dark.
Straight up
The sky over a garden room is open however close the walls are. Raised on an insulated upstand, a flat rooflight spreads light down through the middle of the room, and in a long space a second one evens it out further. The glass sits with a gentle fall so rainwater clears, and the frame is a clean, low profile from the garden.
The light moves around through the day as the sun does, and so the room never has a single dim corner for long.
A garden room is also where the choice between one large pane and two smaller ones becomes real. A single large unit suits a square room; a pair set a little apart suits a long thin one, and the dark band between them gives the ceiling a rhythm.
The drawing below shows the same room twice. Look at the corner farthest from the doors.
Whatever you choose, the aim is not a brighter room for the sake of it. It is a room where the wall no longer decides how it feels, because the light comes from a place no wall can reach.
Heat is a fair worry in a glazed roof, and it has a fair answer. The glass in a rooflight is double glazed and coated, and the regulations set a ceiling on how much heat it may let escape. Our guide to heat loss through a rooflight explains the numbers in plain words, and the survey will talk through the options for your room.
Central Bedfordshire Council and the Flitton conservation area
Central Bedfordshire Council decides planning matters for Flitton. The council's heritage and conservation pages list a conservation area named for the village, with a document dated October 2006. The council's map shows its boundary and can be checked in a few minutes.
Sitting in a conservation area leaves permitted development untouched, whereas an Article 4 direction can withdraw it, so ask whether one covers your street. Our planning guide explains the permitted development position for rooflights, and the council's planning and building pages lead to its planning team. Roof work also comes under building control, covered on the council's building control page, and where the work needs notifying the notification comes from us.
It is sensible to keep any paperwork about past alterations to the house within reach, particularly if the property was altered in the past, because earlier approvals or conditions can affect what is possible now.
Heading east to Flitton
Flitton is 16.2 miles east along the road from Milton Keynes, and the drive takes around 23 minutes. The neighbouring places of Silsoe, Maulden and Flitwick can share one survey trip.
Message us on WhatsApp, 07880 284133, or email info@vertexskylightsmiltonkeynes.co.uk with the street, the room and the problem. A line or two is plenty. We will suggest a time that suits you.
If the day matters, say so. A morning or an afternoon slot can be arranged, and the roof is easier to survey in daylight, so we aim to come when the light is good.
Matching the unit to the Flitton roof
A steep roof on an older cottage suits a conservation rooflight, with its slim frame and a central bar in the traditional style. A modern pitched roof with a loft behind it suits a roof window, and our size code guide shows how a code such as MK04 is read: the letter is the width, and the digits are the height.
A flat roof at the back of the house can take a flat rooflight or a lantern, and an inner hall or windowless bathroom can take a sun tunnel. In each case the logic is the same. Fences, walls, neighbours and trees fill the view from side windows, so the glass goes in the one place they cannot reach: straight up is clear.
When two options both seem right, ask for each to be priced and drawn on the same sheet. Comparing a conservation rooflight with a small roof window, or a lantern with a flat unit, is easier with the figures side by side, and the better choice shows itself once you see them. Our team will explain the trade-offs without pressing you towards the larger or dearer one.
What happens at the survey
The survey is free. We go up to the roof, or into the roof space, to check the covering, the timbers and the pitch. We then stand in the room below and see where the light is thin. The price is written down before any work starts and stays put, and a 10-year workmanship guarantee comes in writing.
Fitting meets the Building Regulations in force, the inside is left finished and clean, and you are left with a room that has a new sky in it. Small commercial jobs are welcome as well as homes. If you want to see how it all fits together before you ask for a visit, read about our straight-up idea or go straight to the quote form.
Nothing needs to be decided in the room. Take the quote away, show it to whoever shares the house, and come back with questions. Replacing an old unit is as welcome a request as adding a new one, and the same survey covers both.
Flitton questions, short and plain
Does Flitton have a conservation area?
The council's heritage list includes a Flitton conservation area. Our planning guide gives the permitted development position, and the council's planners can say whether your street lies within the limits and whether an Article 4 direction has been made there.
What if a tree shades my kitchen window?
A rooflight or lantern in the roof looks above the branches, so the shade at window height does not reach it. The survey will show where best to put it.
How long is the journey out to Flitton?
Allow around 23 minutes. The village is 16.2 road miles from Milton Keynes in an eastward direction, and the survey itself is free.
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