Godstone skylights and rooflights
Godstone sits at the junction of the A22 and A25, close to the North Downs, with cottage terraces up the valley and later houses around them. Where cottages have been joined, or a roof space sits unused, the sky above is often the only side of the house with light left to give.
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- 10-year workmanship guarantee
The back of a knocked-through cottage
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1 Middle of a through-lounge Where two small cottage rooms have been opened into one, the windows stay at the two ends. The centre of the long room is the furthest point from both of them. -
2 Around and above the stairs Cottage stairs are often boxed into the core of the plan, with no outside wall beside them. A roof window over the stairwell can light the flight and the landing together. -
3 The loft room with one small window A room in the roof often has a single gable window or a small dormer. A roof window in the slope sends light down across the floor and into the corners.
Old cottages, new floor plans
Godstone grew in layers, and the layers leave their mark on where the light stops.
The road running past Godstone's church was at one time the main coastal road, and the present village was not built until Tudor times. Houses went up in layers after that. The church of St John the Evangelist was built in 1842, the same year the first two dwellings appeared at The Enterdent, and improvements began on the cottages there in 1857, now numbers 6 and 7. A second terrace of cottages, eight in number, appeared further up the valley. The North Downs Way and the Greensand Way both pass through the parish.
Myth
Opening two cottage rooms into one makes the combined room brighter all over.
Fact
The floor area grows but the windows stay in the same outer walls, so the middle of the joined room sits further from daylight than either old room did. The roof is the way to add it.
When a terrace is knocked together
Five cottages from that original terrace have since been converted into two larger properties, one made from three cottages and the other from two. Cottages of the type are generally one or two rooms deep, with a small window at the front and another at the back. Join two or three side by side and the outer walls keep their small windows while the dividing walls are opened up. The result is a long through-lounge, bright at the road end, bright at the garden end and dim between the two. A sofa placed in the centre of that room sits further from any window than it would have in either of the old rooms. Where two rooms have been joined, a chimney breast or a steel beam may still mark the old dividing line, and a rooflight is positioned around it.
The roof of a single-storey rear addition is the obvious place to bring light back, with the glass set close to where the old back wall stood so it lands over the dim middle of the lounge. Where a bedroom sits directly above the room, the choices narrow, and we look into the roof void to see whether a sun tunnel can come down beside it. The sun tunnel length page gives the limits on how far one can run.
Choosing the spot inside the room
Position matters more than size in a long room. A rooflight pushed to the garden end of a lounge only brightens the part that already has the garden doors beside it. We stand at the dim end of the room at the survey, note where a chair or table is likely to stay, and mark the roof directly above that spot from the loft side. If the dim stretch runs for several metres, two smaller units spaced along it can spread the light more evenly than one large one. A cottage ceiling is often low, so the depth of the finished reveal also matters: a deep, splayed lining lets daylight bounce down into the room and leaves no dark box at the ceiling.
On a flat roof the unit sits on a kerb or upstand, built up from the deck, and the choice between a flat rooflight and a raised roof lantern then follows from how much headroom and sky the room can use. Over a flat roof, a lantern will usually rise further than 150 mm above the deck, and that takes it outside Class C. Planning permission is then required, unless the council confirms it is not.
Fitting around old timbers and thick walls
Old cottage roofs rarely have the tidy, evenly spaced rafters of a modern house. Spacings vary, timbers have been cut and patched over the decades, and a roof that has carried a chimney stack for a century may have been strengthened in places nobody has recorded. We open nothing up at the survey, but we look at the loft side of the roof as well as the tiles, and we say which rafters a unit would sit between, or which would need trimming with new timbers around the opening. The Part L energy rules apply to the glass: a new or replacement roof window takes the window limit of 1.4 W/m²K (or Window Energy Rating band B minimum), and a rooflight or lantern 2.2 W/m²K.
Some cottages here may be listed, and the parish has a Grade II* listed moated manor house at South Godstone, the old Lagham, which is also a scheduled ancient monument. A listed house still has the Class C permitted development rights, but a new or altered roof window will almost always need listed building consent. The steps are laid out on the listed building page, and we talk through them with you before anything is drawn.
Daylight for the stairwell and the loft room
The jobs that suit a village house are usually the ones above the ground floor.
A stairwell in a cottage rarely has a window of its own. Stairs run up between walls that were never meant to be opened, and the landing at the top borrows what it can from the bedroom doors. A window set into the back slope, lined down through the loft space with a splayed light-well, gives the whole flight a source of daylight that arrives from straight above. Where the roof void is deep and the loft floor is in the way, a sun tunnel does a similar job with a much smaller opening in the tiles. A landing under the roof slope can often be lit by a single roof window of modest size, since the light-well only has to serve a short stretch of floor.
The light-well itself is simple joinery: a framed shaft between the roof opening and the ceiling below, splayed so the daylight spreads, and lined with board painted white. On a narrow staircase the splay can be steep, and at the survey we check that the opening in the ceiling sits clear of the stair treads and the handrail line. A staircase is where people carry things, so the finish at the foot of the shaft matters too: a plain, square ceiling reveal that nobody can catch an elbow on.
| Room | What we look at on the roof |
|---|---|
| Through-lounge | The roof of any single-storey addition behind it, and how close it sits to the old back wall |
| Stairwell | The rear slope above the landing, and whether the loft floor allows a light-well |
| Loft room | Rafter spacing and the position of the existing gable or dormer window |
Making use of the loft room
A room in the roof is the place where a roof window does the most work. The ceiling follows the slope, the walls are low, and the one gable or dormer window sees only a narrow slice of sky. A window in the slope lets the whole room see more sky, and a wider roof can take a pair side by side. A room that already has a dormer has glass in one wall, so a roof window in the opposite slope gives it light from a second direction. Because the new opening is a roof window, it sits in the plane of the roof, and permitted development generally applies if it stands no more than 150 mm proud of the original slope and meets the other conditions. The full conditions sit in our planning permission guide.
Building Regulations treat a room in the roof differently from an ordinary window swap. Turning a loft into a bedroom raises the question of how people get out, and in a loft above two storeys the way out normally needs to be a protected route down the stairs, which a roof window does not count as. The Building Regulations guide covers what is checked, and we handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable.
In a loft room the height of the opening above the floor matters for comfort. A unit set low in the slope lets you see out when seated, and a higher one throws daylight further across the floor. We talk through which suits the bed, desk or reading chair you have in mind, and we check the opening against the rafters so that the room keeps its headroom. A roof window that opens also airs a room under the tiles, which can run warm in summer.
Planning authority and conservation
Planning applications for Godstone go to Tandridge District Council. Conservation areas near the village centre include Godstone (The Green) and Godstone (Church Town). A conservation area on its own does not remove Class C; only an Article 4 direction does, so we check your address with the council before saying what is needed. Our Article 4 guide explains how an Article 4 direction works.
Getting to Godstone
Godstone lies about 29 road miles west of our base, which puts it within our 30-mile reach. Surveys cost nothing and end in a fixed written quote for the whole job, backed by a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing. Message us on WhatsApp on 07880 284133, or send the details to info@orchardskylightsmaidstone.co.uk. The form lower down works as well. If you live nearer Westerham, about six miles east as the crow flies, or Edenbridge to the south-east, we survey there too.
Joined cottages, stairs and loft rooms
Our cottage was joined to the one next door and the lounge now runs front to back. Where would you put the light?
Over the centre of that long room, on whatever roof is directly above it. A single-storey rear addition takes a flat rooflight or lantern; a pitched roof takes a roof window in the slope. We stand in the middle of the room at the survey and work out where a patch of daylight would land on the floor. If the dim stretch is long, two smaller units spaced along it may light it more evenly than one large one.
Do I need planning permission to put a roof window into the back of my Godstone house?
For a house, a roof window is usually permitted development under Class C, provided it stands no more than 150 mm beyond the original roof slope and meets the other conditions. Our planning guide sets out when that applies, and Tandridge District Council is the authority if an application is needed.
What can be done about a landing and stairwell that have no window at all?
One roof window over the stairwell can brighten the flight and the landing together, with a lined light-well dropping through the loft. If the loft floor or a water tank is in the way, a sun tunnel takes less room. The roof void decides which one fits, and we look at it from the loft side before we quote.
My house is by the village green. Does that stop me having a rooflight?
Not on its own. We check your address with Tandridge before advising, and the conservation area guide has the detail.
Nearby towns to Godstone
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