That history is why the design suits period houses. The frame is narrow, and it often has one central glazing bar (a bar that splits the glass into two tall panes), which echoes the proportions of an old Georgian sash. The outer face is flat, so it does not throw a shadow line across the slates. The finish is usually a dark grey or black, close to the colour of the lead and cast iron already on an old house. Seen from the garden or the road, it looks like part of the building.
From inside, the effect is just as plain. The glass sits in a slim frame at the end of a splayed reveal (the sloping plastered sides of the opening), so daylight spreads into the loft room, the landing or the stair hall instead of arriving as a hard square. The streets we work in include Clifton, Redland, Kingsdown, Widcombe and the terraces above Bath, where roofs are steeper, slates are older and neighbours notice.
Where it earns its place
The stair hall is the strongest case. A tall Georgian or Edwardian stairwell can be dim at the top, and a conservation rooflight above it lights every landing below. A loft bedroom under a pitched slate roof is the second case, and the third is a bathroom or shower room tucked into the eaves, where a window in the wall is not possible. On a roof slope that faces the road, the flush profile matters most, and that is where planners look closest.
It opens where the design allows, which is the point of this firm. Some conservation rooflights are fixed. Others have a hinged sash with a stay or a vent bar for overnight air, and there are slim electric options for rooms in the roof that are hard to reach. The guide on whether conservation rooflights open sets out which types do and which do not, and the choice is shown on every quote.
Not every house wants one. A modern flat-roofed extension is better served by a lantern or a flat rooflight, and on a plain slate roof with no street frontage a standard roof window can cost less and open wider. Our surveyor will tell you plainly. The next chapters cover the materials, the rules that apply to listed and conservation-area houses, the glazing, and how the work is done on a roof that has stood for a century or more.
