Skylights and rooflights in Gillingham, Kent
Gillingham sits on the line of Watling Street and has a railway station that began as a country halt called New Brompton. Where an extension, a long landing or a loft room has cut a space off from its window, daylight can come in through the roof instead.
- Free survey, fixed written quote
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
Where Gillingham homes lose their daylight
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1 Houses along the old road Watling Street runs through the town, and homes strung along an old through route are often narrow at the front and long at the back. The long plot invites a rear extension, and the extension moves the original rooms further from the garden light. -
2 Streets near the station New Brompton station opened in 1858 on the Chatham to Faversham line. Terraces from the railway age often run parlour, dining room and kitchen in a row, with one window per room and a side return for light. -
3 Flat roofs at the back A single-storey extension brightens the new kitchen and can leave the room it was built against with a window that looks into a wall. The flat roof above is usually where the light can be put back.
Watling Street, the railway and the rooms behind
A long plot lets a house grow backwards, and that is where the daylight goes.
Watling Street, the Roman road, passes through Gillingham, and until the Medway Towns bypass opened in the mid-1960s the traffic on the A2 to Dover followed the same line. Houses strung along an old through route tend to sit on plots that are narrow at the front and long at the back. That shape is the first thing to notice about daylight, because a long plot lets a house grow backwards. Kitchens, utility rooms and dining areas get added across the rear, and every addition pushes the original rooms a little further from the garden.
The Medway towns are layered. The dockyard goes back to Elizabeth I, the Chatham Lines of Defence were built by 1758, and a Dutch fleet sailed up the river and invaded Gillingham in 1667. We treat each house by its roof and its plan.
| Roof form | Unit usually considered | Detail that decides it |
|---|---|---|
| Flat roof of a rear extension | Flat rooflight or lantern | The upstand and the falls of the deck |
| Pitched slope above a stairwell | Roof window | Rafter spacing and the pitch of the slope |
| Deep loft above a windowless hall or cloakroom | Sun tunnel | A clear run through the loft to the roof |
The railway streets
The London, Chatham & Dover Railway opened its line between Chatham and Faversham on 25 January 1858, and a country station called New Brompton was opened here. It later became Gillingham station. Terraces of the railway age generally put a parlour at the road, a dining room behind it and the kitchen last, each with a single window. The dining room's window usually looked onto a side return or a yard. When the kitchen is pushed out into a rear extension, that window ends up facing new brickwork, and the room becomes the dimmest in the house. Because the rooms sit in a line from the road to the garden, the middle of such a house is the part furthest from any glass, and that middle is exactly where an opening in the roof can reach.
The extension roof is where we look. A flat rooflight or a lantern set at the seam where old brickwork meets the new lights the kitchen and also reaches into the dining room, because the glass sits above the doorway between them. On a pitched extension the glass goes into the slope itself.
The landing between two bedrooms
Upstairs, the landing in a terrace has party walls on both sides and often no outside wall at all. It borrows what light it can from whichever bedroom door has been left open. If the roof slope runs directly over the stairwell, a roof window there puts daylight onto the stairs and the landing together. If the loft is deep, or the stairwell sits well behind the slope, a sun tunnel sends light down a tube through the loft space. The choice between them comes down to rafter spacing and whatever is stored up there, and the survey settles it. A loft hatch directly above the landing makes the route for a tube or a window frame easier to plan, and we note where it is.
Semi-detached houses from later decades often have a similar story at a different scale: a hall that runs front to back with the stairs on one side, and a downstairs cloakroom with no window onto the outside. A roof window over the stairs is the usual answer for the top flight, and a sun tunnel for the cloakroom below if there is a clear run to the roof. A tunnel's diffuser sits in the ceiling and needs no wall space, so the cloakroom keeps its layout. Over a flat extension, the direction the glass faces also changes the room: a south-facing lantern lets in strong sun at the cooking end for much of the day and may call for a blind, while glass on a north slope gives a steadier, cooler light across the table.
Party walls and flat decks
Party walls limit where an opening can go on a terrace. A sun tunnel or roof window cannot sit where brickwork rises through the loft, so the opening moves to one side of it, and we mark the wall line on the roof at the survey before anything is cut. Over a flat extension the joists decide which way the opening is framed, and the falls of the deck decide how the upstand is built. Rafters or joists cut for the opening are trimmed round it, which is why the width of a unit is chosen to fit the spacing where we can.
Medway Council, listed buildings and the green
For planning, Gillingham answers to Medway Council. It is a unitary authority, formed in 1998 when Gillingham's borough council merged with Rochester-upon-Medway City Council, so a single office deals with Gillingham, Chatham, Rainham and the rest of the Medway towns. Whether a rooflight on your house needs an application at all is explained in the skylight planning permission guide, and a lantern on a flat roof has its own page, lantern planning and Building Regulations.
| Your house | First question to settle |
|---|---|
| Flat or maisonette | Whether householder permitted development applies at all |
| Former shop, office or barn converted to a home | Whether permitted development rights exist |
| Ordinary house with a flat-roofed extension | Whether a raised lantern needs an application |
Conservation areas around the town centre
Conservation areas in the town include Gillingham Green, Railway Street and Gillingham Park, and your address is worth confirming with the council. A conservation area on its own leaves permitted development in place for a house. Only an Article 4 direction removes it, and the page on Article 4 and rooflights shows how to find out whether one covers your street. Where consent is required, the choice of unit and its place in the slope count for more, as the conservation area rooflight page sets out.
Building Control
We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable, and the Building Regulations guide lists what the inspector looks at. A loft room adds one more question, the route out of the house in a fire, and that gets settled before any roof window is ordered for it.
Surveying a Gillingham house, loft to extension
From our Maidstone base the road north to Gillingham runs about 10 miles, so the town sits well inside the area we cover. The free survey comes first, with a quote fixed in writing after it. Rafter spacing, roof covering and the height of the ceiling below set the shortlist of units that can go in.
Myth
Roof glazing is for the loft, and the floors below have to make do with their windows.
Fact
A flat rooflight over an extension and a sun tunnel or roof window over a stairwell both send daylight down through the house. The storey below the roof can be lit as well as the one inside it.
The loft room
A bedroom or study in the roof often has a window at one gable end and nothing else, and the sloping ceiling makes the far end of the room feel like a cave. A roof window in the slope puts light on the floor and lifts the ceiling plane. Two of them, one on each side of the ridge, give a room that no longer leans on the gable. At the survey we check the rafters, the depth of insulation and the height from floor to the sill of the window, because a roof window set too low in the slope looks out onto tiles and set too high looks out onto nothing but sky. If the loft room is new, the Building Regulations questions about stairs, fire and escape come first. For a loft room added above two floors, the Building Regulations guide covers how escape is judged. Stairs, doors and the height of the new room all enter into it, so we raise the topic at the first visit. The same guide covers the energy limits that apply to the glass.
The kitchen extension
A kitchen extension with a flat roof and a pair of garden doors is the typical starting point. A lantern over the cooking and eating end suits that layout, and a flat rooflight over the walkway can serve the room behind. The existing roof structure decides how the opening is formed. A joisted flat roof can usually be trimmed in around the new upstand, and the kerb height has to match the roof build-up so that the insulation continues up into it. The glass is specified to the thermal limit for its type. For a closer look at the two products, see the pages on flat roof rooflights and roof lanterns.
On a terraced street, getting materials in is usually the part we plan hardest. Where there is no side passage, every tool and pane comes through the front door, so we agree with you how the hall and floors will be covered. Inside, we line the reveals and leave the opening ready for paint. The finished job carries our 10-year workmanship guarantee, written down.
Message us on WhatsApp on 07880 284133 with a picture of the gloomy space and your postcode, or email info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk. The quote form works too. Closer to the river we also cover Chatham and Rochester.
Rooflights for Gillingham terraces and extensions
The kitchen extension on our Gillingham terrace left the dining room with a window onto a wall. Where would a rooflight go?
Over the seam between old brickwork and new, so the glass lights the dining room as well as the kitchen. A flat rooflight suits a flat extension roof, and a roof window does the job on a pitched one. The exact spot is set once we have seen which way the joists run and what the old window looks onto.
Which office decides a rooflight application in Gillingham, Kent?
Medway Council. Whether a house needs an application at all depends on the projection beyond the roof slope, the kind of building and the other Class C conditions, all of which the planning guide sets out case by case.
How would a sun tunnel work over a downstairs cloakroom with a bedroom above?
The tube needs a clear run from the roof down through the loft to the ceiling below, and a bedroom directly above the cloakroom usually blocks that. We trace the route on the survey. Where there is no clear run, a roof window over the stairs lights the cloakroom door instead.
My house is on the council's listed buildings register for Gillingham. What changes?
Listed building consent comes before anything else, and the conservation officer shapes the type of unit and its position, as the page on rooflights on listed buildings describes step by step.
Nearby towns to Gillingham, Kent
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