Skylight and rooflight fitting in Canterbury
Canterbury's roofs belong to several centuries at once, from timber-framed plots inside the old wall to the streets that grew up after the railway arrived. Each period hides its dark rooms in a different place, and we fit skylights and rooflights across the city and the villages around it.
- Free survey, fixed written quote
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
Where daylight stops, era by era
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1 Timber frames on narrow plots The Crooked House on Palace Street is 17th century, half-timbered and double jettied. Houses built on plots like that are generally narrow and deep, which leaves the hall and stairs in the core without a window of their own. -
2 Terraces of the railway age The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway opened in 1830 and the line to the wider network followed in 1846. Terraces of that period are often one room wide and several deep, so a kitchen at the back can swallow the window of the room in front of it. -
3 Later houses, same hidden rooms Semis and detached houses of the last century tend to keep the stairwell and the utility room away from the outside walls. Both can borrow daylight from above if the roof allows it.
Inside the wall: old plots and narrow halls
Houses in the historic core were fitted to their plots, and the plots were long and thin.
The city wall was founded in Roman times and rebuilt in the 14th century, and the city holds buildings from many periods side by side: the Norman castle, the Westgate Towers, the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey, and half-timbered buildings such as the Crooked House at the end of Palace Street, opposite King's School. The oldest surviving theatre building in the city, now The Shakespeare bar, was a playhouse in the Tudor period. For anyone fitting rooflights, that mix matters more than any single landmark. A house on a narrow plot can only grow in one direction, so it grows back from the street, and the depth is where the trouble starts.
In a deep, narrow house the rooms that lose out are the ones in the middle of the plan. A hallway runs from the street door past the foot of the stairs with a wall on each side, so it has no window of its own. The stairwell carries whatever light drifts in from a landing window, and where a rear extension has been added, even that window may now open into a new room instead of the garden. Cottages and terraces of that kind are often laid out this way.
Terms for older roofs and listed houses
- Jettied
- An upper floor that projects out over the one below, as on the Crooked House.
- Listed building consent
- Separate permission, issued by the council, to alter a listed building.
- Original roof plane
- The flat surface of the roof slope as first built, which Class C measures from.
- Sun tunnel
- A tube that runs from a dome on the roof to a light-spreading panel at ceiling level.
Stairs and halls in older houses
The usual answer for a dim stairwell is a window set into the slope over it, placed so that daylight falls down the void to the hall below. Whether one can go there depends on the rafter spacing, the covering and the pitch of the roof, and each of those is read on site. Where a loft or a deep roof structure sits between the slope and the ceiling, a sun tunnel carries light across that gap through a tube instead, ending in a diffuser in the ceiling. The tube can pass round a chimney breast or a roof timber with an angled section, so the route is chosen once the loft has been seen.
Roof windows in the sloping part of the roof are described in our roof window range, and a hallway or landing under a pitched roof is one of the places they suit.
Landings and upper rooms
Upstairs, the same plan repeats. A landing between a front and a back bedroom has doors on either side and no window, and a short flight up to an attic room can be dimmer still. An attic room at the top of a short flight often has a gable window and nothing else, so a roof window in the slope gives it a second source of light. The rear slope over the landing is the usual placement, because the front slope is the one seen from the street. Where a loft floor sits between the slope and the ceiling, the light has further to travel, and the choice between a tunnel and a window comes down to how far that is. We take the measurement from inside the loft, and the same visit shows whether the stair below can share the new light.
Timber-framed roofs need extra thought. A frame that has moved over the centuries can leave the rafters out of square, so the opening is marked against the timbers that are really there. The rafters in an older frame may sit at irregular spacing, so a standard window width may not fall neatly between them, and cutting a rafter means adding trimmers to carry it. The survey records those positions, and the structural work is priced alongside the glass.
Listed houses and the council
Some of the older buildings in the city are listed. Class C permitted development still applies to a listed house, but a new or altered roof window on one will almost always need listed building consent from Canterbury City Council. A window that could go into an unlisted neighbour with no application at all may be refused or heavily conditioned on the listed one. How that consent works is covered in the guide to listed building rooflights, and whether a house is listed is the first thing we ask about a roof opening.
The Crooked House is a useful reminder that not every old building is a house at all. Properties converted from shops, offices or barns under change-of-use permitted development have none of the householder rights an ordinary dwelling carries, so we also ask how a building started life, and we read the answer against the council's records.
Railway terraces, utility rooms and the conservation map
The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway, known locally as the Crab and Winkle line, opened in 1830 as the world's first passenger railway, with a terminus at North Lane. The South Eastern Railway bought it in 1844 and connected the city to its wider network in 1846. Canterbury East and Canterbury West stations both serve the city. Terraces of the railway age are generally one room wide and several deep, with the parlour at the front, a middle room behind and a narrower back addition.
Planning words you may meet in a conservation area
- Article 4 direction
- An order by a council that withdraws particular permitted development rights in a defined area.
- Conservation area
- An area designated for its character.
- Local planning authority
- For Canterbury, Canterbury City Council, which decides planning applications.
- Notifiable work
- Building work that has to be notified to a building control body.
The utility room at the back
When a terrace like that is extended, the kitchen usually moves into the new space and a utility room or boot room is tucked behind it. That room often has a small window onto the side return, or none, and a flat roof directly above it. A flat rooflight over the utility room is the simplest fix: the roof is already there, the joists run in a known direction, and the room gets daylight for the first time. If a pitched extension roof sits above it, a roof window in the slope does the same job. We look at the covering, the falls and what the deck is made of, because those decide the upstand and the product. A utility or boot room also makes a calm first rooflight, since the glass is out of sight of the street and the ceiling below is usually plain.
The same extension frequently leaves the landing or the stair above a dim spot too. We look upstairs and down on the survey, and we say which rooms would gain.
Stairs and landings in a railway terrace
The landing in a terrace of that age runs between party walls, with a bedroom at the front and one at the back, and the stairs rise out of a hall with a door on each side. Daylight reaches it only through open doors. In a house one room wide, the stairs often rise beside the party wall, so the well is long and narrow and the glass can be a narrow unit. Glazing in the rear slope over the stair, or a tunnel where the loft is deep, puts light on both flights. We check where the party wall rises through the loft before we mark the opening, so the frame does not meet it. Daylight reaching the stair also reaches the hall below it.
Conservation areas near the centre
Conservation areas around the city centre include Canterbury (London Road), Canterbury (Whitstable Road), Canterbury (West Station), the Alma, Clyde and Notley Street area, Nunnery Fields, Martyrs Field, the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway area at Hackington, and New Dover Road with St Augustine's Road, as well as St Martin's, St Stephen's, Ethelbert Road and Old Dover Road with Oaten Hill and St Lawrence. Boundaries run street by street, so the council's map is the thing to read for your own house. A house a few doors along from a boundary can fall on the other side of it. Being inside a conservation area does not by itself remove Class C permitted development; only an Article 4 direction does that. If an application is needed, the unit you choose and the slope it faces carry more weight. Our conservation area rooflight guide and the page on Article 4 and rooflights explain the difference.
Canterbury City Council is the local planning authority, and the general conditions for a roof window are laid out in our planning permission guide.
Getting to you from Maidstone
Canterbury lies about 28 miles east of Maidstone, so it is within our 30-mile reach, towards the far edge. The survey is free. After it you get a fixed written quote, we handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable, and the 10-year workmanship guarantee comes in writing. Write to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk or message 07880 284133 on WhatsApp; there is also a quote form lower down. Nearby we also cover Chartham, Boughton under Blean and Whitstable.
Narrow plots, listed houses and Article 4
What does an Article 4 direction mean for a rooflight in Canterbury?
An Article 4 direction is an order by the council withdrawing specific permitted development rights in an area. If one covering your street withdraws the rooflight right, the roof window would need an application. Canterbury City Council holds the records, and our Article 4 guide explains how to find out.
Who decides whether a roof window can go into a listed house in the city?
Canterbury City Council, through listed building consent, which is a separate application made before any work starts.
The hallway in our narrow house has no daylight at all. Where would the glass go?
Straight above the stairwell if the slope allows it, so light drops to the hall below. Where a loft sits between the slope and the ceiling, a sun tunnel is the alternative route. The rafters and the covering settle which, and we measure both at the survey.
What happens if the survey finds the roof structure cannot take the opening where I wanted it?
The structure around a new opening has to carry what the cut rafters or joists carried, so we check spacing and what lies under the covering before pricing. If the first position fails, we look at another position or a different product on the same roof.
Nearby towns to Canterbury
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