Brighter Great Denham landings with skylights or rooflights
A village in a bend of the Great Ouse on the western edge of Bedford, with a parish of its own. Bathrooms, landings and rear extensions are where overhead glass pays off.
Homes in the river loop and around the parade
Great Denham lies on the banks of the River Great Ouse in a loop carved by the flow, and the road from Milton Keynes covers 15.9 miles to the north-east. It belongs to Bedford Borough Council. The village was part of Biddenham parish until April 2007, when its own parish was created, and the Ouse Valley Way footpath runs through it. The practical point is that people live close to the water and to each other, with fences and garden walls never far from a window.
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Houses by the river and the footpath
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Streets near the shops, surgery and hall
Homes on the river side of the village look towards the Great Ouse and the open ground around it, and that openness stops at the garden boundary. Within a few metres of the side window, a fence or a neighbour's wall can take most of what the room looks at. The roof is a different story. It faces the whole sky, with the long evening light that open land gives. A roof window in a pitched slope lights a landing or a loft room from straight overhead, and nothing on the ground gets in the way. The tiles or slates, whichever your house has, are lifted and re-laid round the frame so the slope looks whole. The village has Neolithic, Roman and Saxon history under its fields and a church from the Norman period just over the boundary, but the roofs we work on are today's, and each is judged on its structure, its pitch and the room beneath.
There is a small parade of shops on Anglia Way, a GP surgery on Kingswood Way and a community hall on Saxon Way, and the streets round them hold the everyday family houses of the village. Rear extensions, converted garages and single-storey additions give a flat rooflight a base to sit on. A sun tunnel carries daylight down from the roof through a short tube into an internal bathroom or a landing with no window. A survey will say which suits your roof, and which of the three gives the better result for the money you have in mind.
Two Great Denham rooms that need a view of the sky
A bathroom with a fenced-in window
The window is frosted and the fence is close. Neither lets much in.
Sideways
A family bathroom on the first floor, or a ground-floor shower room in an extension, often gets one small window. It faces the side of the house, and a fence runs a short distance away. Frosted for privacy, the glass scatters the little light that reaches it before it enters.
In the morning the room feels grey. In winter the light is on all day, and the extractor fan runs to clear damp air that has nowhere else to go.
Straight up
A flat rooflight over the bath or the basin faces the sky, and the sky has no fence. Straight up is clear, and nobody can see through glass set in a roof. That means clear glass, not frosted, and a brighter room with its privacy intact. An opening unit lets steam out of the top of the room, where it gathers.
A roof window does the same work if the bathroom is directly below a pitched slope. If a loft or ceiling void sits between the room and the roof, a sun tunnel brings a smaller pool of light through a tube.
We pay attention to what the roof is made of before choosing the opening. A flat roof needs the right upstand and fall. A tiled roof needs the flashing dressed to the covering. Either way, the finishing inside is done neatly, and the damp-proofing round the frame is handled with the bathroom in mind.
Size is a matter of proportion. A bathroom is small, and a rooflight a little wider than the bath is plenty. Too large a pane over a basin makes the room glarey in summer and cool in winter. We set out a few sizes in chalk on the ceiling or a sheet of card held up in the room, so you see for yourself how much light you are buying before you commit. Because the quote is fixed in writing, the choice you make at the survey is the price you pay on the day.
| Option | Suits | Best at | Know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat rooflight | Extension or low roof | Lighting a whole room | Sits on an upstand |
| Roof window | Pitched slope | Bathroom, landing or loft | Opening versions vent steam |
| Sun tunnel | Small dark space | Landings and shower rooms | Smaller pool of light |
| Roof lantern | Taller extension roof | Light into the corners | Needs ceiling height |
A landing that lives in the dark
The brightest rooms have doors that stay open. The stairs are the exception.
Sideways
On a landing or stairwell the only light might come from a front door panel and a window on the half landing. Close to the river meadow, a tree on a neighbouring plot, or one in the garden itself, can grow up in front of that window and shade it from the spring onwards. The stairs get darker each year without anyone choosing it.
It is a small thing until someone carries a basket of washing down in the evening, or a child comes out of a bedroom into a corridor with no daylight at all.
Straight up
A roof window above the stair opens the well of the house to the sky, over the top of the tree. Light falls down the stairwell and spills into the rooms that open off it. Where the landing sits directly under the roof, a window fits straight in. Where there is a loft space in between, a light well or tunnel carries the daylight through.
The roof is the one place a tree cannot reach with its branches in shade for the whole day, since the sun is higher than its canopy for a good part of the year. A roof window turns that high light into a gentle glow on the stairs.
We check the ceiling and the loft insulation on the survey and keep the insulation intact round the opening. The thermal figures for glazing are met, so a bright landing does not become a cold one. If you are thinking about the loft above as a future room, mention it, because the position of a window on the landing can affect that plan.
One more point. A stairwell is a tall, narrow space, and a window high above it reaches the lower flight by bouncing off the walls. Pale paint on the stair walls helps, and so does a landing floor that is not a dark carpet. These are small matters, but they decide whether a new roof window feels like a gift or a half measure. We are glad to say what we see in the room before you decide.
Verdict: for a landing that a tree has darkened over the years, a roof window above the stair lights the whole stairwell from a direction the branches cannot block.
Planning in Great Denham, with Bedford Borough Council
Applications from Great Denham go to Bedford Borough Council, and its list of conservation areas names none for the village. The council's officers can say whether your own street has a restriction such as an Article 4 direction, and its planning pages show how to put the question. St James Church sits just over the boundary in Biddenham, where a different set of questions may apply, so check the address you are working on.
If your house is listed, tell the council what you plan before anything is ordered. Roof changes to a listed building need listed building consent, which is a separate process from planning. The detail we can provide, such as the size of the opening, the frame colour and its position on the slope, helps the council understand what is proposed.
Our planning guide covers the national householder rules, and it is the right starting point if you are weighing up whether your house needs an application at all.
Building Regulations run alongside planning. Where the work is notifiable we deal with the Building Control notification ourselves, and our installation meets the Regulations current at the time of fitting. The route is laid out on the building control page of the council's site.
North-east from Milton Keynes to the Ouse loop
By road Great Denham is 15.9 miles from Milton Keynes, to the north-east, around 20 minutes at the wheel. It lies on the western outskirts of Bedford, and a new bridge across the Great Ouse, opened in 2010, ties it to Kempston on the other bank. A survey fits easily into a morning, and we plan the day so that a second visit in the same part of Bedfordshire takes little extra time. The Ouse Valley Way runs through the village, and anyone who walks it will see the roofs from the footpath side as well as the road. We think about that view when we choose where an opening goes, so the slope still looks tidy from the river meadow.
Kempston, Bromham and Bedford are the nearest places with a page each. The roofs in each are different, and so is the advice.
What happens at a Great Denham survey
Surveys cost nothing. The visit begins in the room that bothers you, where we stand at the spot you would sit and look up. After that we climb into the loft, or go out onto the roof. We check the covering, the structure and the position of any pipes or cables, and we talk through two or three layouts. For a bathroom, we look at ventilation and the route the damp air takes. For a landing, we look at the stair, the ceiling height and whether a clear path exists between the roof and the stairwell.
We also look at the practical side of fitting. Access to the roof, space to set up a tower and the route through the house for tools are all agreed beforehand. Fitting a single rooflight is a job of a day or two, planned to leave the house as we found it, with the room above and below tidy.
You then receive a fixed written quote that does not change on the day. The work carries a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing, and the ceiling is plastered and painted when the job is done. Before the visit it helps to know which room you want lit, whether the roof is tiled or slated, and whether the loft is boarded. Tell us if anything is stored under the opening, because we cover furniture and floors, move what is in the way and clear the dust before we leave. A WhatsApp to 07880 284133 gets things moving, and so does an email to info@vertexskylightsmiltonkeynes.co.uk or a note through the quote form.
Before you book in Great Denham
Can I put a skylight in a first-floor bathroom with a pitched roof?
Yes, if the roof structure allows it. Above the bathroom, a roof window in the slope can take clear glass, because nobody can see down into the room. Rafters and ceiling are inspected at the survey, and an opening version carries steam out from the top of the room.
Does Great Denham have a conservation area?
The council's list for Bedford Borough names none for the village. Whether your street falls under a restriction such as an Article 4 direction is something its officers can answer. It is worth a short enquiry before any order is placed, and our planning guide explains the wider rules.
A tree is shading my landing window. Will a rooflight fix that?
It can. Light from the side is blocked by the tree, yet the sky over the roof stays open. A roof window brings daylight in from overhead and down the stairwell. Straight up is clear, whatever stands in the garden.
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