Skylights & rooflights in Colerne A hilltop village where the wind finds every roof

Choosing a unit for the old slopes

Much of the old village is likely to be inside a conservation area, and there are listed buildings among the cottages, so Wiltshire Council has a say in what goes on a roof that can be seen from the lane. If your slope faces the road, a conservation rooflight is the safest bet: a thin metal frame, a single glazing bar, kept low so it lies level with the stone tiles, which suits a street-facing slope. If the slope faces the garden and nobody sees it from outside, an ordinary roof window can go wider and is easier to work. Before anything is fixed, it is worth reading the planning permission guide and then having a word with the council.

Stone roofs are not uniform, and each one has to be read individually. Sizes of tile change from eaves to ridge, old nails have worked loose in places, and the timbers underneath may have settled over the centuries. None of that is a problem, but it is why the survey is done in the loft as well as from the lane. The tiles are thick and graded in size, and a few of them will need lifting to make room for the new frame. The same team takes them off, stacks them in order and sets them back around a made-to-fit flashing, so the courses run true again. At the end of each day the roof is left sealed, and the rooms below are kept clear and clean.

Inside a cottage, small is usually right. The clear stretch of slope between rafters and eaves is often short, and a modest unit that suits it looks better and works as well as a large one. One carefully placed unit over the stairs often does more good than two squeezed into a cramped bedroom, because the stairwell is where the house's warmest air ends up. If the room is cosy and you only want a view of the sky, a fixed unit may be enough. If it is the place you sleep, ask for one that opens, and ask us to show both versions in the quote, so the difference is plain to see. The written quote carries the opening options for each unit, with no obligation attached.

Inner rooms in the middle of the plan

Plenty of mid-century semis put the bathroom or the landing at the heart of the plan. Only a room under the slope can take a roof window, but where one does, one set above the stairs lights the landing and gives the stairwell a vent. Where the room sits below a loft that has not been converted, a sun tunnel sends daylight down the loft void, and certain models add a vent kit. Neither option needs the heavy structural changes that a full dormer would.

The kitchen at the back

Many families have added a kitchen or garden room to the back of the house. These extensions are bright, but a fixed glass roof on a south-facing wall of the house can turn them into a warm box by lunchtime. The cure is not a bigger fan. It is a unit that opens at the highest point, so the warmth drains upward and the garden doors can stay closed. An opening flat roof rooflight does that job over a worktop, and a roof lantern does it over a family dining table.

Mounted so far overhead, these units are best driven by a motor or by solar power. A manual one nobody can reach never gets opened. Solar versions suit a finished room, because there is no cable to chase through freshly plastered walls. Our page on electric opening rooflights explains how they work, and the costs page sets out what changes the price.

Beyond the village itself, the lanes towards the valley join the wider area we cover. If you live closer to Box than to the middle of Colerne, or on the Batheaston side, the same ideas carry over. The Batheaston page covers the bigger stone terraces down in the valley.