Skylight and rooflight fitting in Bromley
Bromley was an agrarian village with a bishop's palace and became a railway town after 1858, and its housing has gone up in layers ever since. The rooms likeliest to lose daylight are the dining room, a kitchen built onto the side and the room in the roof.
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What each era of Bromley building leaves in the dark
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1 Houses from the railway's first decades The station opened in 1858 and turned a village into a town. A house of that age often has a middle dining room whose single window faces a side passage. -
2 Twentieth-century growth Bromley's population rose sharply as London spread. Houses from those years are often extended at the side, and the new kitchen can lose the old window. -
3 A loft of any age In any house the space under the roof is the same kind of place: low at the eaves and lit by whatever the gable or slope allows.
A coaching road, a railway and a borough
Bromley is a large town in Greater London, within the London Borough of Bromley. Reaching it from Maidstone means about 29 road miles heading north-west. It began as an agrarian village. In 1185 Gilbert Glanvill, Bishop of Rochester, built Bromley Palace there, and the bishops held it until 1845, when Coles Child, a wealthy local merchant and philanthropist, bought it and became lord of the manor. A position on a coaching route and a railway station that opened in 1858 turned the village into an urban town.
| Era of the house | Room to look at first | Product to price |
|---|---|---|
| Railway-era Victorian | Dining room between front room and kitchen | Rooflight on the extension behind it, or a roof window on the pitch over the extension |
| Any age with a converted loft | The room in the roof, low at the eaves | Roof window sized to the rafters and the headroom |
| 20th-century semi or detached | Kitchen built into the side of the house | Flat rooflight or lantern over the new space |
Houses from the railway's first decades
Victorian houses built once the railway arrived tend to be tall, with a front room, a dining room behind it and a kitchen or scullery at the back. The dining room in the middle of that run may have a lone window looking out on the side passage or the yard. Extend the kitchen sideways into the passage and that window now looks at a wall. The roof overhead is a pitched one, and the loft above it may already have become a bedroom or a study. A loft that has been converted has its own floor, so a light-well from a new roof window has to pass through that floor as well as the roof.
Growth through the 20th century
As London's conurbation spread, Bromley's population rose sharply. The town became a municipal borough in 1903 and part of the London Borough of Bromley in 1965. We ask when the house was built and what has been added to it before we suggest a product.
Twentieth-century houses are often wider than Victorian ones and may stand on plots with space at the side. A side extension is one way those houses grow, and the flat roof on top of it, over the middle of the new space, is a plain place to set a rooflight. Where the extension roof is flat, the unit that suits depends on how much height the room can give it: a flat rooflight needs little, and a lantern needs headroom to be seen from below. Shortlands railway station serves primarily residential areas immediately south-west of the town centre.
When the loft is already a room
A loft may already have been turned into a bedroom or study, perhaps with a dormer at the back and a single roof window at the front. In those rooms we start from what is there: how big the existing windows are, which way they face and whether they open. If a unit has failed, we replace it; if the room is dim at the far end, we look at adding a second one. A dormer with a flat roof can take a small rooflight of its own. A room that already has a dormer has glass in one wall, so a roof window in the slope beside it adds light from a different angle.
Reading the roof from the garden
From the back garden we can see what matters: whether the extension roof is flat or pitched, how the main slope meets it, where the chimney stands and whether a dormer has been added. The view from the top of the garden shows what a plan cannot, and we usually take a look from there before we go indoors.
A room in the roof, and the kitchen below
A room in the roof takes its ceiling from the rafters, and the lowest part of that ceiling sits at the eaves. The usable floor is the strip where you can stand, and a roof window over that strip throws light across the sloping ceiling and into the part of the room that gable windows never reach. A study or bedroom in the roof with a window only at one gable end is bright at that end and dim at the other. A pair of roof windows side by side is one way to light a long room in the roof.
Size and position are set together. The rafter spacing sets the widest roof window that fits before extra framing is needed, and the height of the glass above the floor decides what you see from a seat. VELUX codes such as MK04 give the width in the letters and the height in the digits, so a code on an old unit tells us the size of the opening we are replacing. A loft room also has escape and structural questions to answer, and our Building Regulations guide sets them out.
Five checks for a room in the roof
- The height Where the ceiling meets the slope, and how much of the floor has standing headroom.
- The rafters Their spacing and size set the widest unit that fits between them.
- The slope Which way it faces, and what midday sun does to the room beneath.
- The position High enough to light the ceiling, low enough to see out from a chair.
- The notification A new opening is building work, so we handle the Building Control notification where it applies.
Light for a kitchen built into the side
A kitchen extension in the side of a house takes over the passage where the flank window used to be. The new room is lit by whatever glazing it has at the garden end, and the part nearest the old house is dim. A flat rooflight over that nearer end, or a roof lantern over the centre of the room, puts daylight back where the walls cannot. A side-extension kitchen is used for cooking and eating, so the daylight needs to reach the work surface and the table, which sit at different ends of the room. We look at the covering, the fall and the direction of the joists first.
Inside the opening
The shaft between a roof window and the ceiling is lined and angled when the unit goes in. A wide splay spreads light along the sloping ceiling, and a narrow one drops it in a patch on the floor. In a room under the rafters the depth of the shaft depends on the build-up of the roof, which we measure at the survey, so the finish inside is drawn up with the same care as the unit on the roof.
The dining room in between
A dining room that sits between the front room and the kitchen is lit from one end at best. If it opens into the extension through an arch or wide doors, the daylight from a rooflight in the extension roof reaches it through that opening. If a wall shuts it off, the roof of the extension cannot reach it. A dining room under a bedroom is a separate problem from an upstairs landing, where a sun tunnel running up through the loft is one option.
Who do you ask about a rooflight in Bromley?
Planning matters in the town go to the London Borough of Bromley, and the long answer on rooflights lives in our planning guide. The same national rules cover a house in Bromley as a house in Kent, so a visit from a Maidstone firm does not change them.
Myth
A house in Greater London follows different rooflight rules from a house in Kent.
Fact
The permitted development rules for houses are national, so the same conditions apply in London boroughs and Kent towns. What differs from one area to the next is the authority that decides applications.
Conservation areas near the centre
Conservation areas near the town centre include Bromley Common, Durham Avenue, the Broadoaks Estate and Bromley Town Centre. A conservation area does not on its own remove permitted development rights for a rooflight; only an Article 4 direction does, and where an application is needed the rooflight type and the slope it faces carry more weight. We check your address against the borough's records, and our conservation area rooflight guide explains what changes.
Houses that began as something else
If your house began as commercial premises or farm buildings, the route that turned it into a home matters. Conversion under change-of-use permitted development takes householder rights away. A full planning permission leaves them in place, unless one of its conditions says otherwise. A flat or maisonette sits outside householder rights altogether. Tell us the history of the building, and we will work out which of these applies.
The journey and the survey
Bromley sits close to the outer edge of our 30-mile area, so the survey is arranged ahead as a visit. It costs nothing, and a written quote with a single fixed figure follows. On completion you get our 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing.
Eltham and Sidcup lie north-east of Bromley, and Orpington lies to the east. We survey in Eltham, Sidcup and Orpington on the same terms.
Our WhatsApp line is 07880 284133, the inbox is info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk, and the quote form below reaches the same place. Whichever you pick, name the room, the road and roughly when the house was built.
Lofts, kitchens and dining rooms
Our semi is close to Bromley Common. Does that change what we can fit?
That depends on the address, and we check it against the borough's records before advising. The conservation area guide sets out the rest.
We are converting our loft in Bromley. Where should the roof windows go?
High enough on the slope to light the ceiling and low enough to see out from a seat, with the rafter spacing setting the width. Escape and structure for a room in the roof have their own section in our Building Regulations guide. If the loft already has windows from an earlier conversion, tell us, and we will look at replacing them as part of the same visit.
What would you put over a kitchen built into the side of the house?
A flat rooflight over the end nearest the old house, where the flank window used to be, or a lantern over the centre of the new room. Joists and the roof's fall decide which of the two fits.
Our dining room sits between the front room and a kitchen at the back. How does it get daylight?
Through the extension, when the dining room opens into it. A rooflight over that end of the extension sends light through the opening into the dining room. A closed-off dining room needs a different answer, and we work it out on site.
Who signs off the work in the London Borough of Bromley?
Either the borough's building control team or a registered building control approver signs it off. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable.
Nearby towns to Bromley
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