Daylight for Kempston's cottage rows from rooflights and skylights
Kempston grew from a scatter of hamlets called Ends into a town of its own beside the Great Ouse. Below, the roofs and rooms of Kempston are matched with the skylight or rooflight that lights them best.
Old Ends, a New Town of 1870 and the streets after
In the Borough of Bedford, about two miles south-west of Bedford town centre, Kempston is both a town and a civil parish, and Bedford Borough Council is its planning authority. There was never one central village. Settlement was split between hamlets called Ends, among them Up End, Bell End, Wood End and Box End, and the roofs of the town still tell that story. Some belong to old cottage rows, some to the streets laid out when developers began building on land called Kempston New Town in 1870, and some to the housing that has gone up since.
-
Cottage rows and older houses around the Ends
-
Terraces and streets from the Kempston New Town years onward
The oldest parts of Kempston have a long past. The Domesday Book records the place as Camestone, and a sixth-century Anglo-Saxon burial site is now home to the Saxon Centre. Church End, with Kempston's original parish church, remains a small hamlet today. In and near these older areas the houses are smaller, the rooms under the slope are low, and the windows are modest. This kind of roof is where a conservation rooflight belongs. Its frame is slim, it sits close to the slope, and from the road it looks like it was always meant to be there. The room beneath gets real daylight for the first time.
The Urban District was centred on East End, Up End and the New Town streets, on the north-eastern side of the parish nearest Bedford. Terraces and semi-detached houses on streets like these are narrow, with shallow roofs over the rear offshoots and kitchens that were added later. A roof window lights a loft room, a flat rooflight serves a rear extension, and a sun tunnel reaches a landing or hallway with no outside wall whatever. In every case the neighbour's wall is close and the sky is not.
The daylight three Kempston rooms are lacking
A kitchen against the neighbour's wall
The window is there; the view is brick.
Sideways
Rows of older houses stand shoulder to shoulder, and the rear kitchen has its one window in a side wall. Outside the glass is the flank of the next house, a couple of metres away. The pane is clean, the frame is sound, and what comes through is a flat grey wash with no direction to it.
The worktop by the window is just about lit. The hob, the table and the far corner depend on a ceiling light from morning until night, and the room feels smaller than its floor plan says it is.
Straight up
A flat rooflight over the cooking and eating zone looks at the open sky, and a neighbour's gable cannot reach it. Straight up is clear. The light arrives from overhead and drops into the middle of the room, which is where the work is done. It sits on an insulated upstand, and the roof is dressed round it so the junction stays dry.
A longer kitchen can take two rooflights set in a row, which spreads the daylight down its length. On a squarer one, a single larger unit does the job. At the survey we mark each option in chalk on the floor, which shows you where the light would land.
A rear kitchen on an older Kempston street may have been extended once or twice already, so the roof above it can be a patchwork. We look at the joists, the build-up and the fall before we promise a position. Then we write it into a fixed quote and the inside is finished neatly, with plaster and paint dealt with round the opening.
If the room is a lean-to with a pitched glazed roof, a replacement of the whole roof is a different job from one rooflight, and we talk through both at the same visit.
Kitchen-roof words, in plain English
Upstand
The short raised kerb round the opening that a flat rooflight is fixed to.
Fall
A gentle gradient in a flat roof that drains rainwater to its edge.
Flashing
Thin metal or membrane that seals the join between rooflight and roof covering.
Joist
A horizontal timber that carries the roof or ceiling and may need trimming round an opening.
Trimmer
A short crosspiece of timber that carries the ends of the joists cut for the opening.
Lining
The finished splay of plaster and paint between the roof and the ceiling.
A hallway with no outside wall
A route through the house, and the darkest part of it.
Sideways
A terrace or a semi can have a hall that runs straight from front door to stairs with a wall on one side and the next-door house on the other. There may be a small pane over the door and nothing else. In winter the lights go on at breakfast and stay on, and in summer the hall is the one cool, dark spot that everyone passes through.
Where a tall tree stands in the front garden, even the pane over the door is shaded through the day. Moving a window is not an option, because there is no wall to move it in.
Straight up
A small dome at roof level collects the daylight for a sun tunnel, and a tube through the loft space delivers it to a diffuser set in the hall ceiling. It needs a roof slope above it and a clear run through the roof space, not a big opening. The dome is set high enough to sit over the tree line from the street side, and the tube carries the light down to a place no window could reach.
Where the stairwell runs up into a loft room, a roof window over the stair gives a taller shaft of daylight that reaches the landing and the hall below. Which of the two fits depends on what the loft looks like, so we go up and check.
The roof window route matters for another reason, which is safety. A loft conversion on a house of two storeys is bound by rules on escape, and those rules are about how the stair is protected, not about the size of a window. The figures below are the regulation numbers for the glass itself. For the planning side, read our planning guide.
Three numbers worth knowing before you choose glass
- 1.4 W/m²K
- the ceiling on heat loss for a new roof window in an existing house, or window energy rating band B
- 2.2 W/m²K
- heat-loss ceiling for a new flat or pitched rooflight in an existing home
- 4.5 m
- greatest height above the ground at which an upper floor may rely on an escape window
A bathroom shaded by a tree
Privacy glass on one side, a canopy on the other.
Sideways
A bathroom window is small and frosted for privacy, which already cuts the light before anything else gets a say. Add a mature tree on the next plot and the room goes dim for months. Leaves fall in October and the glass stays gloomy, because the trunk and the bare branches still stand in the way.
The mirror needs good light, and so does the shower, since mould likes a damp, dark corner. A bulb helps with the first and does nothing for the second.
Straight up
A roof window or a small opening rooflight in the slope above the bathroom ignores the tree entirely. Straight up is clear, and the sky over the roof is higher than any branch can reach. Frosted or obscured glass is available, so privacy is not an issue, and an opening unit lets steam out through the roof instead of onto the ceiling.
A bathroom beneath a flat roof gets the same benefit from a flat rooflight. If the room is on a landing with no roof directly above, a sun tunnel can reach it.
The table sets out four ways to bring the sky into a bathroom and what each one is good at.
| Bathroom route | Where it fits | What it does well | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roof window | Pitched roof above | Light and a view | Needs a slope of suitable pitch |
| Opening rooflight | Pitched or flat roof | Letting steam out | Needs a power or hand control |
| Flat rooflight | Flat extension roof | Wide, even daylight | Sits on an upstand |
| Sun tunnel | Inner room, small roof | Reaching a dark corner | Gives light, not a view |
Planning in a town the council lists a conservation area for
Planning decisions in Kempston sit with Bedford Borough Council. Its historic areas and buildings page names a conservation area called Kempston, with the boundary drawn on a map there. Standing inside one does not in itself remove permitted development. An Article 4 direction can do that, so check with the council whether one covers your street.
Our planning guide holds the permitted development conditions; to check a particular address, use the planning and building control pages of the council's site. Where a house is listed, rooflights need separate consent.
Building Regulations apply alongside. Where the work is notifiable we notify Building Control for you, and the fitting meets the regulations current on the day. The council also explains its building control route.
From Milton Keynes to Kempston by road
Heading north-east out of Milton Keynes, Kempston is 15.2 miles away, a drive of about 20 minutes. It is close enough that a survey fits into an ordinary working day. Bedford and Bedford St Johns stations lie roughly a mile and a half to the north-east of the town for anyone who plans to meet us after a train, though for the survey itself we come to you.
The River Great Ouse runs round the town on a sharp bend and separates it from the Queen's Park area of Bedford. See our Bedford, Great Denham and Wixams pages: if you live on the edge of the town you may find your street better described there.
Which roof suits which Kempston house
Start with the roof you have. A cottage or a terrace with a clay tile or slate slope takes either a conservation rooflight or a roof window, and the choice between them is about how visible the slope is from the road. Our short guide to conservation rooflight or roof window sets out the difference.
Flat-roofed rear extensions want a flat rooflight. If you would like some height and a lit ceiling, ask about a roof lantern instead. A hallway or landing without a roof directly overhead wants a sun tunnel. The 2003 planning brief for land close to the Western bypass proposed 1,000 new homes, and houses built to modern standards are a different question again: the walls hold heat well, so the aim is daylight, and the rooflight needs to match the thermal standard of the house around it.
Our pages on roof windows, flat roof rooflights and sun tunnels go into each product in turn.
What happens at a Kempston survey
The survey is free. We begin in the room and look up, because that is where you will notice the change. Next we examine the rafters, the covering over them and the fall, from inside the roof space and from the roof itself, looking for a position that clears the structure and the weather.
You receive a fixed written quote that does not change on the day. A 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing covers the work, and the inside is left tidy, with plaster and paint finished round the opening. Fitting a single rooflight is a one or two day job once the unit is on site. To book, use the quote form, or write to info@vertexskylightsmiltonkeynes.co.uk, or send a WhatsApp to 07880 284133.
Kempston questions, one at a time
Is my Kempston street in the conservation area?
The council's list includes a conservation area at Kempston, and its map shows where the edge runs. Ask the planning team at Bedford Borough Council whether your address sits inside it and if an Article 4 direction is in force there. Do that before you pick a product, as a slimmer conservation-style frame may suit better.
Will a sun tunnel work in a terraced hallway?
Yes, where there is a roof above and a clear route for the tube through the loft. The dome on the roof collects daylight and the tube takes it down to the diffuser fitted in the ceiling. What you gain is light, not a view. A sun tunnel is a neat answer for halls, landings and small bathrooms.
My kitchen window faces next door's wall. Will a rooflight help?
It will. The wall blocks what comes in from the side, but it cannot block the sky above the roof. Over the table or hob, a flat rooflight sends light down to the centre of the room, while the existing window keeps serving the edge.
How do I book a survey in Kempston?
Send the room and the street, with a photo if you have one, through WhatsApp on 07880 284133 or to info@vertexskylightsmiltonkeynes.co.uk. A survey visit to Kempston is simple to book, being roughly 20 minutes' drive from Milton Keynes. A visit costs you nothing, and the figure on the written quote that comes after it is the one you pay at the fitting.
Nearby
Free survey
Book your free survey
No obligation. We survey before we price.
Or WhatsApp 07880 284133
