Skylights & rooflights in Shepton Mallet Mill lanes, a viaduct and hillside roofs

Shepton Mallet is a town of tall houses in narrow lanes, long terraces and edge-of-town estates. Skylights and rooflights can give the top of each one a window that opens, which the old buildings never had.

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An electric roof window high above a double-height space

Due south down the A37: From Bristol it is 20.5 road miles due south to Shepton Mallet, an easy run for a surveyor.
Three storeys around the market cross: Tall houses and former works where the top floor is warm and the rear windows are small.
Terraces stepping out of town: Victorian rows with a dark landing and an untouched loft, ready for a roof window.
Estates on the Mendip edge: Newer homes and extensions that catch the wind and the sun, and need units that close themselves.

Insulation fitted round a rooflight opening

The top-floor rooms that go stale first

The old malthouse flat
A converted room under a long roof where permission and the freeholder matter as much as the glass.
The terrace back bedroom
A small room over the stairs, with one rear window that gives no draught at all.
The estate extension
A kitchen with a flat roof that bakes in the afternoon unless a high rooflight can open.

Openings for tall town houses and Mendip-edge estates

Roof windows for tall houses and terrace lofts, sun tunnels for dark landings, conservation rooflights for the oldest roofs, and flat rooflights or lanterns above extensions.

In the town and across the east Mendips

We cover the town centre and its terraces and estates, and the villages around, including Evercreech, Chilcompton and Coleford, as well as Wells.

Every town we cover

Bristol Shepton Mallet

A Mendip market town

Putting a window at the top of Shepton Mallet

The centre is tall, close-built and protected, while the terraces and estates beyond are plainer. The old buildings need slim, careful units, and the newer ones need openings that look after themselves.

A market town high street of old stone houses

Tall houses and the old centre

Shepton Mallet made its living from cloth, then from brewing and cider, and the buildings tell the story. Around the Market Place and its old market cross, the streets are narrow and the houses rise three storeys or more, with the old mills, malthouses and warehouses mixed in among them. The railway viaduct that strides across the eastern side of town is the landmark most visitors remember. Beneath it, roofs of tile, slate and local stone run down the valley sides in steps.

Tall, close buildings behave in a particular way. The ground floor sits in shade and stays cool, but the top floor takes the sun, and warm air collects there with no cross-draught to clear it. Many of these top floors started as storerooms or workshop lofts, so they have small windows set low in the wall, or none. People now sleep there, and they notice.

Daylight and a draught for the top floor

One roof window at the back of a town house hands the top-floor room something it never had: an opening up near the ridge. When the window tilts out from the base, warm air slips away along the roof, and cooler air takes its place through the lower floors if a stair door is left ajar. A vent bar along the head lets the sash stay shut overnight yet still pass a trickle of air.

Houses in the tight lanes tend to share a wall on both sides, which leaves the roof as the sole place for a new opening. A slope facing the back yard keeps the new opening away from the street, and the front elevation stays as it has always been.

Shepton Mallet building	Likely unit	Opening
Tall town house, top floor	Roof window	Tilts, with vent bar
Former works converted to flats	Check with the freeholder	To be agreed
Stone cottage in the lanes	Conservation rooflight	Rod or handle
Low rear outbuilding	Flat rooflight	Solar motor

Conservation area and the town's council

The centre of Shepton Mallet is a conservation area, and the town has many listed buildings. Somerset Council deals with planning and listed building consent, and a rooflight on a listed building needs that consent. If your house is inside the conservation area, it pays to check the council's view on the slope you have in mind. Flats and maisonettes, common in converted mill and warehouse buildings, follow stricter rules, so permission may well be needed there. The planning permission guide goes through each case.

The oldest roofs call for a conservation rooflight, with a narrow frame, one bar divides the glass, and it lies close to the slope, so it reads as part of the roof and not as an addition. Hinged along one edge, it can still open on a rod or handle, which airs the attic as well as lighting it.

Think about how the house is used through the day. A top-floor room that serves as a bedroom needs air at night, when the family is in it, while a room used as an office needs daylight and a way to cool the afternoon heat. The same roof window does both jobs, but where it sits and how it opens differ. At the survey we ask who uses the room and when, and we mark the sash height to suit the person who will actually work the handle.

Underneath the tiles, the timbers need checking. The roofs of old buildings are rarely regular, and a rafter that has taken the weight of tiles for generations should not be cut away without thought. From the loft we read the structure before recommending a size, and if two smaller windows suit the roof better than a big one, we tell you. Any new opening counts as building work, with the surrounding timbers trimmed to suit.

When an existing unit has failed, the glass misted or the frame no longer shutting tight, the remedy is replacement. Fitting a new frame with new glass is notifiable work, and the notice to Building Control comes from us. A fresh sealed pane in a frame that has kept its shape needs no such notice. To see which applies, read the misted and failed rooflights page.

Top roof window Warm air gathered at the top Tall narrow stairwell Fresher air from the floors below

In a tall Shepton Mallet house, a roof window high on the back slope releases the warm air that gathers at the top, and the lower floors supply cooler air.

A newer estate with flat-roofed rear extensions

Terraces, semis and estates

Past the old centre, Shepton Mallet has grown outwards in layers. Victorian terraces step along the roads out of town, interwar and postwar semis fill the middle ring, and the estates on the edges are newer still. Alongside them sit the showground and the open land that the Mendips roll across. Out on the edge the wind can be keen, and a roof has to cope.

Terraces, semis and the unused loft

The Victorian terraces are tall and narrow. In most of them the landing is dark, the back bedroom is small and the loft is untouched. Over the head of the stairs, a roof window gives the whole house a vent. Where nobody plans a loft room, a sun tunnel can light the landing ceiling at lower cost and with less mess, and a few models add a small vent that lets some air drift through.

Interwar and postwar semis are simpler. A single roof window facing the garden usually serves the loft room, with another over the bathroom if the layout allows. In a bathroom, fit the window above the shower so steam escapes at ceiling level.

Opening roof windows are a nuisance on exposed hillside roofs.

A closed window is sealed against the weather whatever the wind is doing. On a roof that catches gusts, we pick a motorised unit that closes in rain, or leave fixed the units nobody needs to open.

Newer estates tend to have shallower roofs and plenty of fixed glass in the extensions. A kitchen or conservatory-style room with flat glazing can overheat, and it is the easiest of all to put right, since an opening flat rooflight can be set into the existing roof. A roof lantern that opens suits a higher ceiling, because its glazed sides trap a column of warm air that is better let out.

Choosing how it opens

Height settles the question. A unit within arm's reach can be manual. Anything higher needs a motor, and the choice is between mains power and solar. The electric opening rooflights page covers the controls and sensors. Solar suits a finished room, because no new wiring is needed.

A loft bedroom with a roof window open — A terrace bedroom with its roof window tilted open for the evening.

Viaduct the arched railway bridge above the town, a handy landmark
Malthouse an old building where grain was prepared for brewing
Back slope the side of the roof turned away from the road
Sealed unit the double-glazed panel set into the frame

We also work in the neighbouring villages, including Evercreech and Chilcompton, and in the cathedral city of Wells, a short drive away. To see how the figures build up, the costs guide explains how glass, size and motor change what you pay. Each quote shows fixed, manual and motorised versions, so a choice is easy to make.

Weather is part of the plan out on the exposed edge. A roof window on a Mendip slope takes the rain from the west and the sun from the south, so we pay attention to flashings, which are the metal strips that seal the window into the roof covering. Properly dressed, they keep the opening dry for many years. We also suggest an external blind where the slope faces the afternoon sun, because it stops heat at the glass rather than inside the room. A blind and an opening sash together tame a hot loft far better than either one alone.

The first summer in a new extension can be the one that prompts a change. The room is lovely in spring and punishing in July. Adding an opening unit to the existing roof can be done without disturbing the rest of the room, and the work takes far less time than the original build did. That is why a warm extension is a good reason to ask about a rooflight that opens. It also pays to talk about blinds at the same visit, since fixing one later is easier when the frame is chosen with it in mind.

Every house in Shepton Mallet has some corner where the air stands still. Find it, and that is where the window belongs.

What Shepton Mallet owners ask about the top floor

Can I put a rooflight in my Shepton Mallet town house?

Probably, if it is a house and not a flat, and if it is not listed. Inside the conservation area, check with Somerset Council about the slope you have in mind. The planning guide sets out the usual rules.

I live in a flat in a converted old building. Is that different?

Yes. The planning position for a flat is stricter than for a house, and the freeholder or management company usually has to agree as well.

How do I air a landing with no window?

Fit something in the roof above it: either a window that opens, or a sun tunnel that lights the space and, with certain vent kits, lets a little air move.

Can you come out to Shepton Mallet to measure?

Yes. We visit, check the roof from the loft, and send an itemised written quote showing the opening choices.

Pastel-painted Georgian terraced houses with iron railings on a Bristol street

Tell us about the room

A few details is all we need. We'll come out, advise and give you a written quote.

No pressure, no obligation.