12.6 road miles south of Derby, near the pool that once fed a mill.
Melbourne's period houses hold bedrooms with low ceilings and little glass. Tell us which room stays dim and we begin the survey there.
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For period slopes, conservation rooflights keep the roofline calm; roof windows and electric opening rooflights suit newer bedrooms; and walk-on rooflights can light a room below a terrace or flat roof.
An old market town carries roofs of many ages, and the sensible approach is to ask what the room under each one needs. A bedroom wants light in the morning and darkness when you sleep. A top-floor room wants ventilation as much as brightness. The right unit follows from where the bed sits, which way the slope faces and how visible the roof is from the street. A conservation rooflight is the quiet choice for a slope people look at. A standard roof window is simpler where nobody does.
The full guide
Bedrooms in older houses sit close to the roof and often have a single small window. Light matters in a bedroom in a particular way, and so does the planning position of a period house. This chapter follows the bed, then the glass, then the rules.
Callout 1
The bed is the spot in a bedroom, and everything else follows from where it stands. People look at the ceiling from it, they wake facing a particular wall, and they get dressed in a particular corner. A rooflight that ignores all this is only an opening with a view.
In a bedroom under the eaves, the usual problem is that the only window is small and low. Daylight reaches the floor beside it and hardly anywhere else. A roof window placed above the far end of the bed or off to a side lets the light fall across the whole room, and a patch of sky is visible from the pillow.
Sleep is the other half. Darkness matters as much as daylight in a bedroom. A blackout blind built for the unit handles that, and it is simple to specify at the start. It runs in side channels, so the edges stay dark, and it can be motorised when the unit opens electrically.
We also think about the position of the bed relative to the opening. A rooflight directly above the pillow can be cold in winter if the glass is poor, and it can wake you at dawn in summer. Placing it to the side, or past the foot of the bed, avoids both. Come survey day, we stand at the bed, or at the place it will go, mark it, and fit the unit's position around it.
Light colour on the walls and ceiling carries daylight further. A pale, matt finish sends the light across the room, while dark paint soaks it up. In a low Melbourne bedroom that difference is easy to see, and the choice of paint costs nothing to get right.
A bedroom rooflight needs a way to darken as well as a way to brighten.
Callout 2
Melbourne is an old market town, recorded in the Domesday Book, and it has roofs to match. The town had a castle in the fourteenth century that was fortified from a royal manor house and never finished, and a pool that once served the mill. Roofs of that age are rarely regular, and a rooflight on one has to respect that.
On an older slope, we use a conservation rooflight where the slope is visible. Its frame is slim and low, and one bar across the glass, and it lies near the covering so the slope keeps its familiar line. Slate, clay tile and stone slate each need a different flashing, and each is cut and dressed to suit.
Inside, the timbers are the issue. Old rafters may be uneven in size or spacing, or have been altered over the years. The opening is laid out around what the loft actually holds, trimmed properly, and the loft floor is checked for the new shaft. A torch, a tape and a camera go up with us at the survey, and the photographs are compared with the plan.
Where a Melbourne covering has gone brittle, the slates or tiles around that opening are swapped for matching ones, so the new unit has sound roof about it.
Callout 3
The survey is followed by a written quote with one fixed figure. For a plain single rooflight the roof stage typically runs to a day or two, and the 10-year workmanship guarantee is put in writing.
The survey costs nothing and commits you to nothing. We look at the bedroom, the loft and the roof, and we write down what we see. The quote follows. It names the unit, the place it will go, the lining and the blind, so you can hold it up against what you had in mind.
On the roof, the work is weather-dependent, and we plan around the forecast. The opening is not left uncovered overnight. If the job runs across two days, the slope is made watertight at the end of the first.
We stand at the bed, look up, then check the loft timbers and roof.
A fixed written quote with the unit, position and lining named.
The covering is lifted, the rafters trimmed and the unit set and flashed.
The light well is insulated and lined, ready for your paint.
The blind and opener are tested and the guarantee is noted in writing.
Callout 4
A planning question in Melbourne goes to South Derbyshire District Council, with its website at southderbyshire.gov.uk. Old streets in a market town are where conservation areas and listed houses tend to turn up, so your address is researched before the survey, never guessed from the street name.
Plenty of houses qualify for a rooflight through householder permitted development, though conditions apply, which our planning guide sets out beside a link to the official text. That route is shut to a flat or maisonette. A listed house requires listed building consent before most work. Should a Melbourne street be a conservation area, South Derbyshire can tell you if the right has been withdrawn by an Article 4 direction.
Building Regulations come next. Cutting a rooflight into the roof frame for the first time is building work, so approval comes through the local authority or a registered building control approver, and that is our task wherever it is notifiable. Part L reaches a straight replacement too, so a Melbourne roof window is judged against 1.4 W/m²K, and a Melbourne rooflight is judged more leniently, at 2.2 W/m²K.
Escape is the other test for a Melbourne bedroom in the roof, and a roof window serves a Melbourne bedroom only where the floor sits 4.5 m above ground or lower. Bungalow and chalet bungalow bedrooms can qualify, provided the opening is big enough, whereas a room above two storeys cannot rely on a roof window.
Melbourne is a market town with some 4,900 residents in South Derbyshire. Its name means mill stream, and the Domesday Book records it as a royal manor. Melbourne Pool was originally used by the nearby mill, and in 1311 the manor house was fortified to form Melbourne Castle, though the work was never completed. Jean, Duke of Bourbon, the most important French prisoner taken at Agincourt, was held at the castle for nineteen years. A town with that much history has a mixed stock of buildings.
On High Street, the Thomas Cook Memorial Cottages were built in 1890 and 1891. They include fourteen cottages, a bakehouse, a laundry and a mission hall. They were built by Thomas Cook, who started popular travel in England. An old-looking house can carry specific protections, and where it is listed, listed building consent comes first.
Around the old streets, the usual layers of English housing follow. Period brick cottages and terraces with low upper floors and small windows come first. Interwar and post-war semis come next, usually with tiled roofs, boarded lofts and a flat-roofed extension at the back. Newer closes complete the picture, with wider rooms and lofts that have been converted for bedrooms or offices.
That mix produces a pattern of requests. Period houses ask for slim conservation rooflights in a rear slope and a careful look at the timbers. Semis ask for roof windows in loft bedrooms and sun tunnels for landings and bathrooms with no window. Extensions ask for flat rooflights and lanterns above a table or worktop.
Where a lane is narrow, it affects fitting day, because glass, frames and long timbers must reach the roof. The route is checked when we visit and the access plan is entered in the quote.
Yes. The slim frame and single central bar of a conservation rooflight keep it close to the covering, which suits slopes where the roofline counts. We check the council's guidance for your address first, since a period house may be listed or in a conservation area. A Melbourne bedroom with a low ceiling is a good candidate, since the roof is never far above the bed.
Not when it is planned for. A blackout blind made for the unit slides in side channels and darkens the room, and a motor can drive it alongside an electric opening rooflight. The position of the bed matters too, which is why we plan from where it stands.
A fresh opening cut through a Melbourne roof does, and our notification goes to the local authority or a registered building control approver. A straight swap is covered by Part L, and the incoming unit must achieve the figure for its type.
Not as the way out. The 4.5 m height limit rules out a roof window as the escape from a loft conversion above two storeys, where a protected stair is required instead, whereas a bungalow loft remains within the height.
South Derbyshire District Council holds that information and publishes guidance on its website. We check the address before the survey, and Historic England's list is also a place to look. Consent for a listed house comes before any drawing.
A plain single unit generally needs a day, sometimes two, on the roof. Uneven timbers or brittle slates near the opening in an older house can stretch that, with the written quote saying so beforehand. The figure stays as agreed.
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