Potton Georgian rebuilds welcome skylights and rooflights
Potton was rebuilt after its great fire of 1783, and the Georgian buildings that came out of it sit beside later cottages and smallholding houses. Each kind of roof wants a different skylight or rooflight.
After the fire: Georgian brick and the cottages that followed
Potton is in Central Bedfordshire, reached by 27.2 miles of road heading east out of Milton Keynes. Its market charter goes back to 1094, and the market grew into one of the largest in the county during the Tudor and Stuart years. In 1783 a fire destroyed King Street, half of the Market Square and part of Brook End. What was built afterwards is the Potton you see today, so the town has an unusual mix: Georgian buildings first, then later housing wherever the town grew.
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Georgian rebuilds around the market square and Brook End
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Smallholding houses and later edges of town
Samuel Whitbread, the lord of the manor, had brick buildings put up on the square in 1797, and the rebuilding after the fire gave the centre its Georgian buildings. Each older building in the centre is worth looking at roof by roof. Potton has a conservation area, and a roof in the centre needs a conversation with the council before you plan a front slope. The rear slope is the place for a conservation rooflight, which has a slim frame and sits close to the tiles. It lights a back bedroom or a loft study, and the street never notices.
In 1935 the first Land Settlement Association estate of thirty smallholdings was set up east of the town, along the Wrestlingworth, Sutton and Hatley Roads, on land given by Percy Malcolm Stewart. Potton became the model for twenty more across the country. Houses on these larger plots, many extended since, suit a different approach. For a rear kitchen extension choose a roof lantern if the ceiling is high, or a flat rooflight if not; a pitched roof with a spare loft room calls for a roof window. Because these plots are open, the sky above is the clearer view.
A loft and a kitchen in Potton, and the sky above both
A cottage loft facing a brick wall
The room is lovely. The view is a wall.
Sideways
In an older town centre, houses can stand shoulder to shoulder, and the yards behind them can be narrow. A loft room under the roof of one of these houses may have a small gable or dormer window, and a brick wall rises a short distance beyond the glass. It might be the neighbour's outbuilding, or the back of the next row.
So the loft that could be a study, a spare room or a child's bedroom has light that arrives sideways and gets turned back by brick. A bulb stays on all day, and the corners under the eaves are darker still.
Straight up
Set into the slope, a rooflight faces the sky instead of the wall. Straight up is clear, even in a yard so tight that you can touch both sides. On a Georgian roof we choose a slim conservation pattern, placed on the back slope, with the frame sitting low against the tiles. That keeps the roof honest from the street, and the loft is brighter than it has ever been.
Inside, we finish the reveals and the lining so the opening looks as if it was part of the room from the start.
The gain is bigger than the size of the glass suggests. A window in a gable looks across a few metres of yard, while a rooflight of the same size looks at a whole sweep of sky, and the light it sends down reaches the floor and the far wall of the room.
Older roofs hold surprises. The timbers can be set at uneven spacing, a chimney breast might sit in the wrong place, and the ceiling beneath may be lath and plaster. We visit, climb into the roof space and look, then agree a position that works for the room and for the structure before a quote is fixed. Potton has a conservation area, so put the question of consent for your street to the council's planners before you commit to a design.
A kitchen extension beside a garden fence
The cook stands in the dim middle of a bright room.
Sideways
On the smallholding plots to the east of the town and the later streets round them, the usual family project is a kitchen extension at the back. It runs close to the boundary, so the side window faces a fence a stride away. The glazed doors at the end give a little brightness, but the worktop and the dining table stand in the room's centre and depend on lamps.
The extension is solid and warm. It still feels like a room where the day is somewhere else. Guests drift towards the front of the house on a Saturday because that is where the sun arrives, and the new kitchen sits half empty.
Straight up
Over the worktop or the dining table, a flat rooflight puts daylight into the middle zone, because it looks up at the sky and not out at the fence. An insulated upstand carries the glass, tilted at a slight fall, and that tilt is what sends the rain off. A long room can take two in a row, and a squarer room suits one large pane. Where there is ceiling height to spare, a roof lantern adds shape and sends light to the corners.
If the room warms up in summer, an electric opening rooflight lets the hot air rise out.
With open ground all round the plot, what matters is the path the sun takes across the day. We look at the room in the morning and afternoon light if we can, then place the opening so the table is bright when the family uses it. A rooflight placed too near the house wall gives a hard patch of sun for an hour, and one placed a little further out gives a softer, steadier wash across the room.
For a lantern, we also talk about how the room will look from the garden. A lantern is a feature on the outside as well as the inside, and on an open plot you will see it from the lawn every day.
| Roof | Suits | Glass | Know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Georgian rear slope | Loft study or bedroom | Conservation rooflight | Council check first |
| Shallow loft slope | Spare room | Roof window | Pitch matters |
| Extension roof | Kitchen or diner | Flat rooflight | Kerb raised above the roof, with a fall |
| Tall extension | Open-plan room | Roof lantern | Needs headroom |
| Warm south room | Garden room | Opening rooflight | Vents hot air |
The conservation area and the planning route
Planning in Potton rests with Central Bedfordshire Council, whose conservation area list includes one named for the town. The council holds the authoritative map of the boundary. A conservation area is not a ban on rooflights, and by itself it leaves the permitted development rights that houses normally have untouched. A separate Article 4 direction can do that, so ask the council's team whether one applies to your street.
Start with the planning pages on the council's website. Our planning guide covers the general rules, and we will tell you plainly at the free survey which of your options are likely to need a formal answer.
Reaching Potton from Milton Keynes
Potton lies east of Milton Keynes, 27.2 miles by road, and the drive there takes roughly 37 minutes. The nearest railway stations are at Sandy and Biggleswade, which sit among the neighbouring towns along with Gamlingay. Potton had its own station once, on the Varsity Line between Oxford and Cambridge, but it closed in 1968.
The town also has a railway story of its own. Captain Peel built a branch from Sandy to his estate and on to Potton, and it opened in 1857, though he died in India before he could see it. The locomotive, named Shannon, is now kept at Didcot Railway Centre. For us the point is simpler: the road east is clear, and a survey visit takes an afternoon rather than a day.
Why the ground matters less than the roof
Potton Brook runs through the middle of the parish from north to south, and the land around it is alluvial, loamy and in places damp, with clay vale and greensand ridge on either side. People talk about that ground when they plan foundations. A rooflight does not touch the ground at all. It is fitted to the roof, so the geology only matters if you are building a new extension to put it on, and your builder will deal with that.
What the landscape does give you is open sky. Where a plot is on the town edge, with fields or gardens beyond, the clear patch of sky above the roof is wide, and a rooflight uses it to the full.
The same openness helps in the evening. A rooflight in a kitchen or garden room catches the last of the light long after the side windows have gone dim, and it shows the sky turning colour over the roofs of the town.
Which roof suits which glass
A pitched loft slope takes a roof window, and a VELUX window is a good choice where you want a familiar frame in a wide range of sizes. A flat or shallow extension roof takes a flat rooflight. A Georgian house in the centre wants the slimmer conservation pattern, and a landing or hallway with no roof directly above it can use a sun tunnel.
Skylight and rooflight are the same thing seen from two sides: the homeowner says skylight, the trade says rooflight. The choice between the two kinds of product follows the shape of your roof and the way you use the room.
If you are weighing up the thermal side, our page on energy efficient rooflights explains how glazing is rated, and the costs page sets out what goes into a quote, so you know what to ask before the survey.
The survey, the quote and the fitting
The survey is free. Because the town has so many different ages of building, we start by asking when the house was built and what has been done to the roof since. We look at the roof from outside, go up into the loft where access allows, measure the room and talk through what you want from it. A fixed written quote follows, and the figure stays put on the day.
Fitting is done within a day or two, and the inside is finished too, leaving no plaster dust or bare timber behind. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable, install to current Building Regulations and give you a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing. Book a free survey through the form, or send us a WhatsApp message.
Potton roofs, asked and answered
Is Potton a conservation area, and does that stop a rooflight?
Potton appears on the council's list of conservation areas. A rooflight is still possible, and rear slopes that are hidden from the street are the easiest. An Article 4 direction is what would take away the rights a house normally has, so ask Central Bedfordshire Council if one covers your road.
Which rooflight suits a Georgian house near the market square?
On the rear slope the natural choice is a slim conservation rooflight. It has a low profile and a central glazing bar, so the roofline still looks right from the street, and it lights the loft room directly under it.
Can you light a kitchen extension on one of the smallholding plots?
Yes. Where there is ceiling height, a lantern, or a flat rooflight set above the worktop or table, brings daylight into the middle of the room. Once we have seen the roof on the survey visit, we recommend a position and a size.
Do you work in Sandy, Biggleswade and Gamlingay as well?
Yes, all three are close to Potton, and each gets the same free survey and fixed written quote.
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