Stanwick stone lanes opened up by skylights or rooflights
A North Northamptonshire village of stone walls, listed houses and a Grade I church, beside the lakes of the River Nene Regional Park. Its roofs are old and its plots are close.
Stone walls, a village green feel and new streets
Stanwick, in North Northamptonshire, is a village with a parish council of its own. People have lived here since Roman times at the latest, and a Roman villa was excavated in the 1980s and early 1990s. The Domesday Book names the place, and Peterborough Abbey held the manor in 1086. The result is a village where old and new sit side by side, and where a roof can be four centuries old or four decades.
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Listed houses and stone-walled lanes
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Family houses with lofts and kitchen extensions
The village carries a run of listed buildings, among them the thirteenth-century Church of St Laurence at Grade I, Stanwick Hall at Grade II*, and a handful of seventeenth-century houses at Grade II, including the Manor House and 39 High Street. Stone walls line the village, some dating from around 1838. Roofs on buildings like these are best left looking as they do. A conservation rooflight in a back slope lights a loft room without changing the face of the building, and listed building consent applies where the house is listed. Tell us what the planning team says and we will shape the quote around it.
Stanwick has grown, and the later streets hold ordinary family houses with a loft that wants to be a bedroom and a rear kitchen that has been pushed out into the garden. A roof window gives a loft its first proper daylight and its first view of the sky. Glass in the flat roof of a kitchen extension, whether a low flat rooflight or a raised roof lantern, brings daylight to the middle of the room where the worktop and table sit. Gardens in the newer streets are close together, so the sky is the clear view in a way the side window cannot be.
Stanwick, a loft and a kitchen, seen from above
A loft room beside a village tree
A room under the eaves, and a tree that has been there longer than the bed.
Sideways
Stanwick is a village of gardens, and gardens grow trees. Behind a house, a loft bedroom can end up with a small gable window and a mature tree filling half the view. The leaves cut the sun in summer, and in winter the branches make a grey net across the glass. Daylight comes in thinly and never reaches the far wall.
It is a nice room in every other way: quiet, high up, with a sloping ceiling that suits a child or a guest. It just needs a better way of letting the day in.
In the evening the loft gets no relief. A lamp is switched on when the garden outside still has an hour of light in it, and the sloping ceiling closes in around the glow.
Straight up
Light from a side window passes through the tree. Light from a roof window comes from over it. A pitched-roof window placed in the slope looks straight up and out to the sky, so the room gains a wide, even pool of daylight and a view of clouds. Straight up is clear, and it stays clear in a way the garden view cannot.
Roof windows come in a range of sizes, and the choice depends on the rafter spacing and the height of the sill above the floor. We measure these in the loft and suggest a size that fits between the timbers without altering the structure more than it needs.
Because a roof window is tilted with the slope, it also catches the sky low in the south or west, which is when a loft room gets its warmest light. Blinds fit inside the frame for the hottest afternoons, and an opening sash lets heat out at the ridge side.
Where the house is listed or old, a slim frame suits it better. The conservation rooflight page explains the pattern, and we can show you a sample at the survey.
Stairs matter in a loft room, and a roof window is not an escape route from a second storey. Our roof windows page explains how stair and window work together, and the survey is the moment to raise it.
| Opening | Best for | Know |
|---|---|---|
| Roof window | A loft bedroom or study | Opens for air and view |
| Conservation rooflight | A listed or older roof | Slim frame, low profile |
| Fixed rooflight | A small space that needs light only | Plain and simple |
| Electric opening rooflight | A high slope out of reach | Opens from a switch |
A kitchen extension with a fence at its flank
A good plan, one window short of a bright room.
Sideways
The rear extension is the room a family lives in, and the kitchen is the heart of it. In a village plot with close neighbours the side wall has a window that looks at a fence about two strides away. The garden doors help at the far end, but the worktop and the table sit in the middle, where lamps are on all year.
You could fit a larger window, but the fence would still be the view, and it would still be blocking the light you wanted.
Meals take place at that table, and homework, and half the conversations in the house. The one thing the room lacks is a source of light above the people using it.
Straight up
Above the kitchen worktop, or above the table, a flat rooflight puts daylight where the work is done. Its frame is carried on an insulated kerb, the pane falls gently so water runs off, and it is open to everything overhead. A long room suits two rooflights in a line, and a squarer room suits one large pane. For more height and a softer spread, a roof lantern lifts the glass above the line of the ceiling.
The new roof opening has to meet current energy rules for an existing home. Approved Document L allows a rooflight no more than 2.2 W/m²K, and a roof window either 1.4 W/m²K or WER band B; we specify the glazing to suit.
With the rooflight in place, lamps become something you choose rather than something you need at noon. Blinds and tinted glass are available for rooms that catch the afternoon sun, and an electric opening rooflight lets warm air out when the kitchen heats up.
If you have a fence you want to keep, keep it. The rooflight does not mind it, and the garden stays as private as it was. We also work out where the water leaves the flat roof, so the new upstand works with the existing drainage.
Energy limits that apply to a new opening in a house that already stands
- 1.4 W/m²K
- ceiling for a roof window, or else WER band B
- 2.2 W/m²K
- ceiling for a rooflight under Approved Document L
Planning in Stanwick
Stanwick comes under North Northamptonshire Council. Ask the council's planning team whether a conservation area covers your address before you settle on a frame. A listed building is a separate matter, because changes to its roof need listed building consent.
Permitted development comes with conditions, and our planning guide lists each one. The council's planning and building control pages are the place to look up an address or put a question to the officers.
It is good practice to mention a project to neighbours who share a boundary, even where nothing needs their consent. Rooflights are quiet to install, and the work takes place on your own roof.
The Stanwick Neighbourhood Plan
In July 2017 the Stanwick Neighbourhood Plan was made, and it is now a legal planning document. The planning authority must consider it when it decides applications in the parish. If your project needs a planning application, for instance because the house is listed or a direction removes permitted development, the plan is part of the background to the decision.
For a plain rooflight in a back slope this rarely becomes an issue, but it is worth a line to the planning team when you ask about your address. Tell us what they say and we will fit the product to it.
Neighbourhood plans are written by the parish, checked by an independent examiner and approved at a local referendum, which is why they carry weight. Reading the Stanwick plan before you apply costs an evening and can save a revision.
Building Regulations and the rooflight
Cutting a new roof opening counts as building work, so the Building Regulations apply whether or not planning does. Where notification is needed we send it to Building Control, and the work is built to today's standards. The council describes its service on the building control page. Private building control comes from a registered building control approver.
The paperwork is ours to chase, and you receive the completion certificate for your records. If you sell the house in future, that certificate is a useful thing to hand over.
Safety glass is part of the specification. Over a room where people sit and work, we use a toughened outer pane and a laminated inner pane, and we write the exact build into the quote.
From Milton Keynes to Stanwick
Heading north from Milton Keynes, the 26.5 road miles to Stanwick take about 37 minutes. The village sits among the villages and towns of the Nene valley: Each of the nearby places has its own page, at Raunds, Irthlingborough and Higham Ferrers, and all three are close.
The village is about 15 miles north-east of Northampton, and the old gravel pits nearby, now part of the River Nene Regional Park, cover some 750 acres. Two surveys in the area fit comfortably into one trip, so mention a neighbour who is also thinking about a rooflight.
Ask if you are unsure which nearby place a neighbour or relative lives in. The roads between these villages are quick, and a second survey on the same day saves everyone time.
What we check at a Stanwick survey
Nothing is charged for the survey, which begins in the room. We look up from where you sit, then head up into the loft or out to the slope. We check the rafters, the covering, the ceiling below and the place where the opening can be made without disturbing anything important. In an old house we look at the stone and the roof edge too.
After the measuring and photographs, we talk through a few layouts. You receive a fixed written quote that does not change on the day, backed by a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing, and the inside is finished tidily after the work. A single rooflight is a short job on site.
Get in touch by WhatsApp on 07880 284133 or at info@vertexskylightsmiltonkeynes.co.uk, or fill in the survey form.
If the roof is stone-slated or has old timbers, the survey takes longer, and we may ask to come back with a second pair of eyes. That is normal for an older roof, and it protects the building.
Stanwick questions, plainly answered
Is a listed Stanwick house allowed a rooflight?
It can need listed building consent, which is separate from ordinary planning. The village has several listed buildings, from the church to seventeenth-century houses. If yours is listed, speak to the council first. To help with the application, we can describe the opening, its frame and its position. A slim conservation-pattern frame is the usual choice for a slope that can be seen from the lane.
Which suits my Stanwick roof, a slope window or a flat-roof pane?
It depends on the roof. On a pitched slope, fit a roof window. A flat roof, such as a kitchen extension, suits a lantern or a flat rooflight. Both look up at the sky, so a fence or tree at the side makes no difference to the light they receive. If you are unsure, the survey settles it in a few minutes, once we have seen the roof from inside and out.
How can I book a survey in Stanwick?
One short message is enough to book: name the room and the street, and send it by WhatsApp to 07880 284133 or write to info@vertexskylightsmiltonkeynes.co.uk. We agree a day, carry out the free survey, and send a fixed written quote that does not change on the day. A few photos of the room, and the roof seen from the garden, help us arrive prepared.
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