Skylights and rooflights in Chartham
Chartham is a village strung along the Ashford Road beside the Great Stour, with orchards, farms and a long paper-making past on its doorstep. Its loft rooms, garden rooms and small box rooms can all take their light from the roof.
- Free survey, fixed written quote
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
Along the Ashford Road and the Stour
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1 Houses scattered along one road The village is scattered along the Ashford Road in the vale of the Kent Downs. Houses of different ages sit side by side, so we look at each roof on its own terms. -
2 Oast houses and old outbuildings Horton Manor, a hamlet to the north-east by the Great Stour Way, has a later oast house among its old buildings. Homes made from oasts or barns can lack the permitted development rights of an ordinary house, which the planning guide explains. -
3 Rooms in the roof Older houses often keep their spare rooms under the slope, where one small window gives little. A loft room or box room is the first place we look for a roof window.
Rooms under the slope
How the village's mix of old and new houses decides what the roof can do.
Chartham is reached by about 28 miles of road eastward from Maidstone, on the Great Stour in the vale of the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The village has its own railway station, one stop west of Canterbury West, and a level crossing that was recently upgraded to an automatic barrier. That puts it near the far edge of the 30 road miles we cover.
Myth
Building Regulations set a minimum amount of daylight for a loft bedroom.
Fact
Building Regulations in England set no daylight requirement for houses. The size and number of windows is a design choice, though cutting the opening is building work.
A village with no single house type
The village is scattered along the Ashford Road, and a paper mill, farms and orchards have shaped the parish around it. Housing has also been built on the site where St Augustine's once stood. There is no single estate or terrace to describe. We read the roof, the loft and the room that is giving you trouble. Paper-making shaped the parish for centuries, and the mill dates from the late eighteenth century.
The loft room
A loft room has its walls and ceiling cut by the slope. One small gable window lights the end it sits in, and the far end, where the roof comes down to the floor, stays dim. A roof window cut into that slope throws light across the middle of the room and onto the sloping ceiling, which scatters it further. We place the sill at a height that clears a bed or a desk and choose a width that fits the rafter spacing, so no structural timber is cut that does not have to be. The roof windows page is the place to start on the products.
What is on the roof
Before we choose a unit we need to know what it is cut into. Clay tiles, slate, concrete tiles and peg tiles are all handled differently at the flashing, and the age of the roof tells us how much of the surrounding covering has to be lifted and relaid. Where the tiles are old and handmade, our guide to conservation rooflights on peg tiles shows how a flush unit sits among them. The covering is looked at from the loft side as well, where the battens and underlay show how it was laid.
Air, glare and headroom
Under a slate or tile roof, a loft room collects heat in summer. An opening unit lets the warmest air leave through the top, and a blind on the glass cuts the glare on a bright day. Headroom matters too: a window set too low in the slope looks out on a wall of tiles from a standing position, while one set too high is out of reach. We stand in the room and agree the height with you before marking the roof.
On a house with a deep eaves overhang or a low ridge, the choice shifts towards a longer, narrower unit that fits between the rafters. That is a matter for the survey, because the numbers come from your roof.
Inside a room under the slope, the slope itself sets what is possible. A low sill needs a taller unit so the view clears the furniture, while a steeper pitch lets the glass catch more of the sky.
Mystole, Horton and the garden room
Canterbury City Council decides planning applications for Chartham, though the village is a good way from the city itself. Whether a rooflight on your house needs an application is worked out in our planning permission guide, and we apply it to your roof at the survey.
Terms for old Kent buildings
- Listed building consent
- Separate permission, decided by the council, for altering a listed building, including its roof.
- Article 4 direction
- A council order that withdraws permitted development rights in a named area.
- Oast house
- A building made for drying hops, with a kiln and a cowl, often converted to a home.
- Local planning authority
- The council that decides planning applications for an address; for Chartham, Canterbury City Council.
Old buildings in the parish
Mystole, in the parish, is known for Mystole House, a 16th-century building with Grade II* status, and for its listed outbuildings, among them the coach house and an orangery. Horton Manor has a Grade II listed manor house and the remains of a manor chapel that became an oast house and a store. Your own house may not be listed, but heritage status is worth asking about in this parish before a roof is touched, and a new or altered roof window on a listed house will almost always need listed building consent; our guide to listed buildings covers the route.
Conservation areas
Conservation areas near the village include the Chartham Conservation Area, registered in 1992, and Mystole Park. Living in one does not by itself take away the right to fit a rooflight; an Article 4 direction can, as the Article 4 guide describes. We check your address on the council's maps.
When the house began as something else
An oast house or a barn that has been converted to a home was not built as a house, and the rules treat it differently. If it was made a home under the change-of-use permitted development, it has no householder rights for a rooflight, and an application is the starting point. Older conversions may have been handled by a full application, with conditions of their own. We ask how your building came to be a home before we say anything about its roof, and the planning guide covers the principle.
A garden room by the orchard
The parish has numerous arable farms and orchards. A garden room built looking out on that kind of view has a wall of glass facing it and a roof with nothing in it. Trees at an orchard edge shade a side wall at some hour of the day, while the sky straight overhead stays open. On the sunny side of a garden room, a blind or solar-control glass keeps summer heat down, and the shadier side can take clear glass. A flat rooflight over the back of the room reaches the part the glass does not, and a larger room can take a raised roof lantern, which usually needs a planning application of its own, as the lantern planning guide explains.
The small room at the top of the stairs
Box rooms are small enough that the dark is easy to forget until the door closes. A box room over the porch or at the front of a house has one narrow window and a ceiling that feels low. A box room over a porch can have a flat or lean-to roof above it, and a small rooflight there lights it without touching the main slope. A small roof window, or a sun tunnel when the slope above is difficult, can lift the whole room. The sun tunnel page explains what the tube does. Both leave the front of the house as it is.
| Space | Unit that usually suits |
|---|---|
| Loft room under a pitched slope | Roof window, sized to the rafter spacing |
| Garden room with a flat roof | Flat rooflight, or a lantern if the room is large |
| Box room | Small roof window or a sun tunnel |
| Landing or stair with no outside wall | Roof window with a lined shaft, or a sun tunnel |
Landings and stairs
The landing outside a box room usually has the same fault as the room itself. Doors close, and the stair and landing lose the borrowed light. A roof window over the stair, or a tunnel dropping into the landing ceiling, serves the whole upper floor, and the box room then picks up what spills through its open door. When we survey one, we often look at both together.
Finishing inside the room
Once the unit is in, the opening is lined and plastered back to the ceiling so the edge reads as part of the room. The room is left ready for paint, and a pale colour round the opening keeps more of the daylight in circulation. The dust sheets and the loft hatch go back as we found them.
What the visit involves
From our base in Maidstone, Chartham is reached by the road along the Stour valley and the Ashford Road. At the survey a ladder goes up into the loft to look at the rafters and the covering. We note the tile or slate type, the pitch, the state of the underlay and where cables or pipes cross the line of the opening. A fixed price in writing follows, and the finished work comes with our 10-year workmanship guarantee.
A box room has a trick of its own. A window in the slope has to clear the bed or desk below it, while a tunnel needs an unobstructed route down to the ceiling, straight or gently angled. We choose the one that fits the loft space above the room.
Where the work is notifiable, we handle the Building Control notification, and the Building Regulations guide says what is checked. We cover Canterbury, Boughton under Blean and Wye too. Message us on WhatsApp at 07880 284133 or write to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk.
Oasts, box rooms and the 30-mile edge
Chartham is one of your furthest villages. Does the survey cost extra there?
No. Chartham sits inside the 30 road miles we cover, and the survey is free whether or not you go ahead.
Does a loft bedroom on a two-storey house need a particular kind of window?
The usual escape route from a loft room above two storeys runs down the stairs, and a roof window does not count as that route. This applies to a loft room above two storeys; a bungalow is judged differently, as our Building Regulations guide explains.
Our home is a converted oast. Do the usual rooflight rules still apply?
Houses created from barns and similar buildings under change-of-use permitted development have no householder rights, which means an application is the starting point. The planning permission guide explains the difference.
Does Canterbury City Council or the parish decide about a rooflight in Chartham?
Applications go to Canterbury City Council, the planning authority for the village. At the survey we can tell you whether yours needs one at all.
How do I get daylight into a box room that has only a small window?
A sun tunnel through the roof or a small roof window brings light from above without touching the front wall. Which fits depends on the pitch and what lies between the room and the tiles, so we look at both from the loft. If the room sits beside a landing, the same opening can sometimes serve both.
Nearby towns to Chartham
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Or on 07880 284133, or call 01622 277162
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