Blidworth

Rooflights and skylights for Blidworth's colliery-era streets

27.1 road miles north-east of Derby, five miles east of Mansfield.

Blidworth has old village cottages, colliery-era streets and newer estates, and each has its own dark corner. Tell us which one and the survey starts there.

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Short windows, long landings, shut doors

Armchair below roof windows on bare floorboards — An armchair on bare boards under the roof windows, in a room that stays dim.

A kitchen at the back of the house where the nearest window faces a fence.

Rooflights suited to Blidworth's roofs

For older cottages near the village core, conservation rooflights; for pitched slopes over bedrooms and stairs, roof windows and VELUX windows; for hallways with a loft above, sun tunnels; and energy efficient rooflights where a replacement is overdue.

Blidworth grew from a farming village into a place built round the pit, and the roofs reflect both. On the older buildings, a slim, flush rooflight keeps the roofline calm. The streets laid out for colliery workers are mostly pitched and plain, and a rooflight in the rear slope is usually the neat answer. On newer estates the loft is often the only part of the house that has never had daylight, and a roof window can change that. We look at the house first and choose the type second, and where two types would both work, we show you the difference on the floor plan.

The full guide

A Blidworth landing, from the stairs up

In a village house the darkest place is rarely the biggest room. It is the narrow strip at the top of the stairs, with the roof a few feet above it and no window anywhere near. The pages below follow one landing from the top step to the paperwork behind it.

Landing strip
Loft check
Glazing choice
Council rules

Callout 1

Finding the light for a landing

People describe a gloomy upstairs as if the whole floor were the problem. Stand on the landing and the problem narrows quickly. It is the top step, the strip outside the bedroom doors and the first stride of the stair down. Those are the places you cross a dozen times a day, usually with something in your arms.

Dome, or window in the slope, over a Blidworth stair

Rooflight over the stairwell

Sky view from the stair
Strong light on landing
Needs a clear loft path

Sun tunnel through the loft

Fits around stored boxes
Smaller roof opening
Even light, no view

Two things can light that spot from the roof. A rooflight above the stairwell drops daylight down the flight and onto the landing boards, and it gives you a view of the sky. A sun tunnel pairs a small roof dome with a diffuser in the ceiling, and it suits a landing under a loft you use, where a wide opening would eat into your boxes and suitcases. Which one is right depends on what is above the ceiling, and nobody can tell that from a photograph.

Our survey opens on the landing itself. We mark where the daylight should reach, climb into the loft and check whether the rafters allow an opening above that mark. The comparison below is the short version of what we weigh.

Light the spot you cross a dozen times a day, not the room that happens to share a wall with it.

Callout 2

What the loft decides before the glass does

A rooflight is only as good as the opening behind it. Blidworth has houses from several periods, so the loft above a landing can look very different from one street to the next. Some have simple timber rafters with plenty of room between them. Others have trusses, bracing or a water tank sitting just where you would want the light to come through.

We climb up with a torch and a tape, and we mark three things. The first is the rafter spacing, because it sets how wide the opening can be without cutting a structural timber. The second is the line of the ceiling below, since the light well has to meet the landing exactly where the daylight is wanted. The third is what covers the roof, whether slate, plain tile or concrete tile, because that decides the flashing and how the new unit is weathered in.

If a rafter has to be trimmed, the opening is framed with a proper trimmer, so the load goes round it. If the loft is boarded and used, we explain what the light well takes out of the storage and what it gives back.

What goes on the loft survey sheet

Space available between rafters: sets the widest opening
Ceiling line below: puts the light on the landing
Surface the flashing sits on: decides the flashing kit
Stored items in the loft: light well or sun tunnel
Which slope faces the road: planning check

Callout 3

Choosing the glass and the size

Once the position is settled, the price is shaped by choices you can see and choices you cannot. A bigger opening needs a bigger unit and more framing. Glazing that keeps more heat in costs more than basic glazing and earns it back across winters. Opening or fixed matters too, because a landing with a window you can open is a landing that can lose stale air.

The thermal side is not a matter of taste. Part L 2021 treats the two products differently. For a rooflight the figure is 2.2 W/m²K. A roof window is judged as a window instead, so it needs 1.4 W/m²K, or else Window Energy Rating band B. Your quote names the category your unit falls into. A misted older unit often has glass that no longer insulates at all, so replacing it makes the landing warmer as well as lighter.

A tight, well-flashed frame matters more than a fancy finish, and we put the money there first.

One more choice sits in the glass itself. A unit with a tinted or solar-control coating cuts glare on a bright day, which matters on a south-facing slope over a bedroom, while a clear unit gives the brightest light on a shaded landing. We settle it on site, standing under the spot, because the right answer depends on which way the slope faces and what you do in that place.

What nudges the quote up or down in Blidworth

Opening sizeBigger openings need more framing and a bigger unit.
Covering around the openingSlate or plain tile takes longer to cut in than flat concrete tile.
Fixed or openingAn opening unit and its hardware cost more than a fixed one.
Gap from ceiling to roofA taller void means a longer lining, with insulation inside it.
Scaffold or accessA second storey or a steep slope changes how we reach it.

Callout 4

Blidworth, the council and the paperwork

Planning here sits with Newark and Sherwood District Council. Many house rooflights are covered by Class C permitted development, though it is conditional, and the details, and how they apply, are in our planning guide. Where the home is a flat or a maisonette, those household allowances do not apply. Listed status changes things further, since consent is then required for most alterations.

No published conservation area or Article 4 direction for Blidworth has come to our attention, so a quick call to the council about your own address is the sensible first step. Should permission turn out to be needed, you hear it at the survey, ahead of the written quote.

Building Control is a different track. Making an opening where none existed changes the roof's structure, so the work counts as building work needing approval, which comes from the council or, alternatively, from a registered building control approver. Our side of that notification is covered whenever the job requires it. Fitting a new unit in place of an old one still has to meet the U-value above, and competent person self-certification is open to that.

A village that changed with the pit

Blidworth is a village and civil parish about five miles east of Mansfield, and the 2021 census put the parish at 4,295 people. Its first appearance in writing is the Domesday survey of 1086, a date far older than anything on its roofs. By the nineteenth century it was a farming community with around 150 houses clustered along Main Street, plus farms and three mills, and a population of about 2,000. A brick tower windmill built around 1816 was one of those mills.

The next change was coal. A lot of the houses standing today went up in the first half of the twentieth century to house workers at Blidworth Colliery, which worked from 1926 to 1989. Those colliery houses sit mainly in estates north of Dale Lane, and the hamlet of Blidworth Bottoms lies about half a kilometre to the south, within the parish.

How does that translate to the roof? In practice there are three broad groups of home. There are the older cottages near the village core, where roofs are low and a slim conservation-style unit looks right. There are the houses from the colliery years, usually two storeys with a pitched roof, where the stair landing and the back kitchen are the classic dark spots. And there are the newer estate houses, where a loft that has never had a window is the most likely candidate for a roof window.

Rather than guess which group your house belongs to, we come and look. The survey is free. We look over room, spot and roof, and only then talk figures. A fixed written quote follows. Building Control notification, where the work needs it, is ours to handle, and once the job is done a 10-year workmanship guarantee, put in writing, stands behind it.

The drive out is part of the plan. Blidworth is 27.1 road miles from Derby, so we agree a survey slot with you in advance and keep the visit unhurried. That leaves time to stand on the landing, look into the loft and answer your questions properly before anything is priced.

Blidworth is at the edge of our area, 27.1 road miles from Derby, so we plan the survey day around the drive and will arrange a time that suits you.

Blidworth homeowners ask

Can a rooflight go into a low cottage roof near Main Street?

Often it can, and a slim conservation-style unit is made for exactly that kind of low, modest slope. It sits close to the covering so the roofline stays calm. We check the rafters and the covering at the survey, and we ask you to confirm with Newark and Sherwood District Council that no local restriction applies to your address.

Which is better for a dark landing, a rooflight or a sun tunnel?

A rooflight over the stairwell gives the most light and a view of the sky, when the loft above has a clear path. A sun tunnel fits where the loft is full of stored things, because the shaft is slim. The choice is made on site, once we have seen the space above the ceiling.

My colliery-era house has a back kitchen with one small window. What are my options?

In a single-storey extension the worktop can be lit by a flat rooflight; under the main pitched roof, a window in the back slope may do it. We stand where you prepare food, mark that spot, and size the unit so the daylight lands there.

Do I need Building Control approval to replace an old rooflight?

Replacing like for like still falls under Part L, so the new unit must hit the U-value, and self-certification is possible through a competent person scheme. A new opening is different. It alters the structure and needs approval via the council or a registered building control approver; we handle the notification wherever it applies.

Is a rooflight with misted panes worth replacing?

When the seal around the gap fails, moisture enters, the glass stops insulating and the view turns murky. A replacement meeting current limits is a real step up in warmth and clarity. We examine the frame and flashing during the survey, and price the complete unit, not a single pane.

How long does fitting one rooflight take in Blidworth?

A simple rooflight normally needs one or two days of work on the roof. Finishing inside depends on the light well and any plastering, which we go through when writing the quote. Nothing in the price shifts on the day.

Nearby

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Where do you want the light? Tell us in the form: the worktop, the stair, the desk.

No obligation. We survey before we price.
We cover Derby and 30 miles around.