Old Stratford cottage lofts need a skylight or rooflight
A village on Watling Street, just across the Great Ouse from Milton Keynes. Cottage lofts and terrace rooms here can sit under old trees, so light from straight up is the dependable kind.
Cottages along the old road and terraces behind it
Old Stratford lies in West Northamptonshire, 7.4 road miles west of Milton Keynes, immediately north of the point where Watling Street crossed the Great Ouse. The river is the boundary of the parish, and it is the line between Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire as well. Stony Stratford, which belongs to Milton Keynes, is just to the south. The village has two broad kinds of home, and each has its own sort of roof.
The civil parish is a young one. It was formed in 1951 from parts of three older parishes, and it took in the small village of Passenham a short way upriver. About 1,935 people lived in the parish at the 2011 Census. A village of that size means short streets, neighbours who know one another and gardens that run into each other, which is how trees come to overhang rooms they were never planted for.
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Cottages and houses strung along Watling Street
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Terraces and extended homes on the quieter streets
The name means a ford on a Roman road, and the road still runs through the middle of the village. Along it stand older houses, and some have steep roofs, small gable windows and lofts under the slope. These lofts were made for storage and are now wanted as bedrooms and studies. A roof window in the slope brings the room to life, and a conservation rooflight suits a frontage that you want to leave looking as it does. The village has a conservation area, so the front slope is worth a conversation with the council first. The rear slope can be the better place for the opening anyway.
Away from the main road, the village has smaller family homes, many with rear extensions, garages that have become rooms and flat-roofed additions. Gardens are modest and trees stand close, some of them in neighbouring gardens and some beside the old canal line. A flat rooflight on an extension, or a sun tunnel in a hall or bathroom, gives light a ground-floor window cannot. A raised terrace or conservatory-style room with a shaded outlook may suit a pair of fixed panes in its roof.
Two Old Stratford rooms that wait on the sky
A cottage loft in the shade of a big tree
The room under the slope that needs to be bright and is not.
Sideways
A cottage loft has a gable window, perhaps a small one, set low under the eaves. The room is a good size for a bedroom or study, with the roof pitch giving it character. The window faces a mature tree, though, in the garden or on the neighbouring plot, and from late spring to autumn it frames a wall of leaves.
The light that arrives is green and low. The desk is at the wrong end of the room, the bed is in the dark corner, and the lamp is on by mid afternoon.
Straight up
The tree stays in view from a roof window in the slope. A trunk and branches can fill a gable window, but the sky overhead is clear, and the daylight drops into the room from above. The room feels taller and the corners are lit as well. A conservation-pattern frame suits an old roof, and a standard one is fine on a rear slope that nobody sees from the road.
A roof window also gives you a way to open the room to the air. A loft under old tiles can get warm in the afternoon, and a window you can open lets the heat out, which a gable window with a tree in front of it cannot.
At the survey we go into the loft and look at the rafters, the spacing and the condition of the felt. Older roofs can have uneven timbers, and the opening has to fit between them without weakening the roof. We choose a size that suits the structure, and describe the options in plain terms.
The room itself deserves a look too. Where does the bed or the desk sit? Which wall holds the shelves? A window above the part of the room where you work does more good than the same window above the stairs, and a good position can sit only a few rafters from a poor one. We mark the choices on the slope so you can see them before anything is ordered.
Choose a finish for the lining too. A white, splayed lining sends daylight further into the room than a square dark reveal would, and it makes a small loft feel bigger. The frame colour on the outside is chosen to sit quietly beside the tiles.
Two thermal limits behind every Old Stratford quote
- 1.4 W/m²K
- ceiling for a roof window in an existing dwelling, Approved Document L, Table 4.2, or WER band B
- 2.2 W/m²K
- ceiling for a rooflight in an existing dwelling under the same table
A terrace room beneath a neighbour's branches
A good room that never quite gets going.
Sideways
A terrace room at the back of a house opens onto a small garden. It might be a kitchen extension, a sitting room or a glazed lean-to, and the garden doors give it a view. A tree beside the boundary, tall and in full leaf, shades the glass through the leafy months. A neighbour's tree is not something you can prune on your own say-so.
The room is lovely for a few weeks and gloomy for the rest. The doors cannot be made larger, and the side windows face the trunk.
Straight up
The roof is the one part of the room the tree cannot reach. One flat rooflight, or two fixed panes side by side, sits on an upstand with the glass at a slight fall, and lights the middle of the floor from straight up. With a taller extension, a roof lantern becomes possible; it rises above the roofline and lets light in on every side. A rooflight needs no change to the doors and does not disturb the neighbour.
An electric opening rooflight helps in summer. When a glazed room heats up, opening the roof lets warm air rise out. Our page on electric opening rooflights explains how they behave in rain.
If the tree is a protected one, or the house is in the conservation area, check with the council before work begins. The planning team can tell you quickly. A rooflight does not call for any tree work, so it sits comfortably alongside whatever rules cover the tree.
Consider the way the room gets used through the year. In winter the low sun and bare branches let a little light through, and in summer the leaves close the gap. A rooflight serves both seasons because the sky is always overhead. It lets in daylight on a grey January morning, and with the right glazing it keeps the room comfortable when the sun climbs high in June.
Glazing choice is the part worth a conversation. A modern unit has a coating on the glass that cuts heat loss in winter, and a tinted or solar-control pane can keep the room from overheating in a sunny spell. We go through the options at the survey and put the one we recommend in the quote.
Terms from the survey, in plain words
Upstand
The raised edge around the opening in a flat roof, on which the rooflight is seated.
Fall
The slight slope of a flat roof so rainwater runs to the gutter.
Rafter
The sloping timber in a pitched roof that the roof covering is fixed to.
Felt
The waterproof layer under tiles or slates that sheds any water getting past them.
Lantern
A raised, glazed roof feature that lets light in from several sides.
Article 4 direction
A council order withdrawing certain permitted development rights across a defined area.
Planning when the village has a conservation area
Old Stratford is in the planning area of West Northamptonshire Council. A map of the village's conservation area sits among the council's conservation area appraisals. Look at the council's map to see where the line runs. Standing inside it leaves permitted development intact, but an Article 4 direction can remove it, so confirm the position for your own street.
Our planning guide sets out the detailed permitted development conditions, while a specific house is best checked on the council's planning and building control pages. Listed buildings follow a separate consent route.
Building Regulations are a parallel matter. If the work is notifiable, we file the Building Control notification, and the finished job meets the regulations as they stand today. The council explains its process on the building control page.
Old Stratford is a short hop from Milton Keynes
Old Stratford is 7.4 road miles west of Milton Keynes, about nine minutes by road. Watling Street, the Roman road through the village, takes you to the Great Ouse. Stony Stratford is on the far bank, and Wharf Lane is a reminder of the Grand Union canal arm that ran through here until it fell out of use in 1964.
The villages around it each have a page: Deanshanger, Potterspury and Hanslope. A survey can sit in a short gap in the day, and one rooflight needs only a day or two of work.
Picking a skylight or rooflight for the roof you have
Choose by roof first. Tiles on a pitched roof can be opened up for a roof window sunk into the slope. Where an extension has a flat or low roof, a flat rooflight suits it, and a roof lantern is the alternative if there is height to spare. A hall or bathroom with a loft above but no roof of its own to open takes a sun tunnel. A slim conservation rooflight is the careful choice on an old frontage.
Both words are fair. Homeowners say skylight and the trade says rooflight, and either name covers roof windows, flat glass and lanterns alike. What matters is the glass, the frame, the fall and the finish inside. We set these out in the written quote, so you can compare one option with another without guessing.
What happens at an Old Stratford survey
Surveys cost nothing, and ours opens in the room itself, where we look up and ask what you want from it. Then we look at the roof from inside and out, measure the opening, check the structure and take photographs. Two or three layouts are laid out for you to compare.
The written quote is fixed, with the figure staying put on the day, and the workmanship guarantee runs for 10 years, also in writing. Indoors, the plaster and paint around the new opening are finished before we leave, so the room is left tidy. The quickest routes to a visit are a WhatsApp message to 07880 284133, a note to info@vertexskylightsmiltonkeynes.co.uk, or the quote form. We work in homes first and take on small commercial work too.
Old Stratford, asked and answered
Can a rooflight work when trees shade my windows?
Yes. Beside the house there is a tree that shades the side glass, yet it does not block the sky straight overhead. A roof window or rooflight looks upward, past the branches. The tree stays where it is and the room gets daylight from a source it cannot block.
Does a conservation area reach the Watling Street cottages?
Old Stratford has a conservation area according to West Northamptonshire Council. The council confirms the boundary, and its planning team can tell you whether your house lies inside it and if an Article 4 direction applies. If it is, a slim conservation rooflight may suit.
Must someone be in during the survey?
It helps, because we begin with the room you want to change and ask you about it. We also need to reach the loft space or the ceiling void. Message us on WhatsApp at 07880 284133 and we will agree a time that suits the household.
Will the fitting make a mess of the house?
We protect the room and keep the work tidy, then finish the inside once the opening is made, with plaster and paint left neat. A single rooflight is installed within a day or two, and you will see the result as soon as the frame is in.
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