27.9 road miles south of the city centre, in Blaby district
Skylights & rooflights in Glenfield
A Leicestershire village with an 1830s railway tunnel in its history and two large housing estates around it. Where a landing or back kitchen has never had much daylight to work with, the roof is the place to look.
Glenfield Tunnel, the world's longest at the time
Robert Stephenson's tunnel at Glenfield ran a mile and thirty-six yards, the longest railway tunnel in the world when it was built. The village has grown a great deal since, and what it needs from its roofs is now light, not coal.
Glenfield, by the old railway
Glenfield is a large village in the Blaby district of Leicestershire. It was a civil parish of its own and now falls within the parish of Glenfields, and Glenfield itself is home to 10,823 people. This page starts with the open ground around the village, moves to the planning picture and the two waves of housing, and then covers the roads and the rooflights we would choose. For the broader introduction, skylight installation in Nottingham is where to begin.
01
Ellis Park, old estate trees and an early railway
The ground under Glenfield has more history than most.
The Leicester and Swannington Railway built its first station out of Leicester West Bridge at Glenfield, and it opened on 17 July 1832. It was the world's third steam railway. Just before the station, the line ran through Glenfield Tunnel, built by Robert Stephenson. At one mile and 36 yards it was the longest railway tunnel in the world at that time. The village keeps a place in engineering history.
The green spaces are more modest. Ellis Park is the nearest, 0.4 km from the centre point, the children's play area in Glenfield Park 0.9 km and Queen Elizabeth II XC Park 1.5 km. Kirby Firth Nature Park is 1.6 km away, and Leicester Forest East Spinney 2.9 km. A small patch of mature trees and a pond, once part of the Gynsills Estate parkland, is now kept for biodiversity and nature conservation.
Mature trees and roofs
Old parkland trees are a good thing in a village, but they matter to a roof, and to the room beneath it. Branches shade a slope, drop leaves into valleys and gutters, and shed sap and moss once the damp sets in. A rooflight under or beside a tree needs a frame that sheds debris and a surround you can reach.
| Place | Distance |
|---|---|
| Ellis Park | 0.4 km |
| Glenfield Park play area | 0.9 km |
| Queen Elizabeth II XC Park | 1.5 km |
| Kirby Firth Nature Park | 1.6 km |
Shade is not the same as dark
A tree that shades a window in summer is bare in winter, when the room most needs the light. Even then, a bare tree filters a low sun through its branches, and a dark trunk and a grey sky are not much help to a back bedroom. A rooflight above the canopy line, or on a slope clear of branches, makes up for a window the trees have claimed. We look at which slope has the clearest view of the sky before we pick one.
02
Blaby District Council and a conservation area from 2014
2014
year the Glenfield conservation area was designated
5listed
buildings inside the conservation area
12listed
buildings counted in the wider 1.5 km
Glenfield lies in the Blaby district, and Blaby District Council is the local planning authority. Leicester City Council is next door, but it has no say in planning for Glenfield.
The conservation area named Glenfield covers the centre point of the village and was designated on 22 July 2014. It contains five listed buildings: one Grade II* and four Grade II. Across the wider 1.5 km, Historic England records twelve listed buildings, eleven Grade II and one Grade II*. The 2014 boundary is easy to look up for your address.
Planning in practice
If your house is inside the conservation area, either slope can usually take a flush rooflight without an application, so long as no Article 4 direction applies to the road. We talk through the options on both slopes at the visit. If it is listed, a new opening in the roof needs listed building consent, which is a separate application. Your house may sit outside both. We ask Blaby, in any case, about the address before ordering anything, because the answer is quick to obtain and expensive to get wrong.
The nationwide rules
The wider conditions for rooflights on a house, and how Building Regulations treat a new opening in a roof, are set out in planning permission for rooflights. When a Building Control notice is needed, we send it to Blaby's building control team or to an independent approver on the register, and the work is carried out to current Building Regulations.
03
The Faire Estate, the estate behind Ellis Park and what lies between
Glenfield was greatly enlarged between the 1920s and the 1950s, when the Faire Estate was built. Later, in the 1980s and 1990s, another large estate went up on former farmland behind Ellis Park. Between them, those two periods account for a good deal of what now stands around the older core. Anyone who walks the village will pass from one to the other without noticing, and so will a roof survey, unless it looks at each house in turn.
The building dates hint at how each estate's roofs are likely framed, and here is what we check on every visit.
Two eras, two sets of questions
A house put up between the wars or in the decade after is likely to have been framed one way, and a house from the 1980s or 1990s another. Earlier roofs may have cut timber and a covering that has been replaced at least once. Later roofs are often framed with factory trusses, which carry their load differently, so the framing round an opening is planned differently too. Neither era makes a rooflight impossible. It changes the framing round the opening and sometimes the choice of unit.
| Period | Where built | First thing we check |
|---|---|---|
| 1920s to 1950s | Faire Estate | Age and condition of the covering |
| 1980s to 1990s | Behind Ellis Park | Truss layout in the loft |
Where the dark rooms are
On any estate house, the space that suffers is the one that is farthest from a window: the hallway, the landing, an en suite built into the core, a kitchen that has been extended. Those are the places we try to reach, and the roof above each of them is the only direction light can come from.
04
Getting to you: the A46, the A50 and the road to the M1
Glenfield sits near the outer edge of our patch: 27.9 miles of road away from the centre, almost due south, and around 38 minutes in the van. Both the A46 and the A50 pass near the village. The A50 heads towards Markfield, Groby and Coalville and brings the M1 within minutes. Within 2 km there is no railway station or tram stop, so the road is the way in, for us as much as anyone.
A drive this long brings one practical point: we settle a time with you when you book, and we tell you if anything on the road changes it. Since the price is fixed after the survey, the miles are never a reason for it to grow.
On the first visit
The survey costs you nothing. We spend time in the dark room, noting where daylight arrives and where it stops, then climb to the roof and the loft above it. Only afterwards do we put a price on paper, and the figure on that paper is final.
27.9miles
of road, due south of the city centre
38minutes
driving, in average traffic
Kirby Frith and the edges
Kirby Frith, 1.6 km from the village centre point, gets the same visit. The areas we cover page gives the rest of our patch, and Glenfield is inside it.
If you are coming from the Leicester side, the roads are the same ones we use ourselves, so the visit starts where the map says it should and the survey is booked around the way into your street.
05
Choosing a rooflight for a Glenfield house
The right answer depends on the room, so here are the three we meet most naturally on estate housing.
The landing and hall
On a staircase with no window, a roof window or small flat rooflight over the top flight spreads light down the stairs. If a loft stands between the ceiling and the roof, a sun tunnel can do the same job with a short tube. Our page on sun tunnels shows how the tube and the ceiling panel work together.
The extended kitchen
The back of an extension, farthest from the garden doors, is the room's gloomiest corner. A flat roof rooflight directly over it brings daylight into the part of the room that the glazed doors never reach. An opening version also helps with cooking steam, and a blind can be added so the room is not glaring in June.
The loft bedroom or study
A roof window in the main slope suits a room in the roof. We choose where it sits by looking at the view from the chair or the bed first, since the sill height decides whether you see sky or only roof tile.
New or replacement
A rooflight at the end of its life can be replaced on the same opening in many cases. Whichever route you take, the fitting carries our written workmanship guarantee of ten years.
Standing in the room, ask which way the slope faces. A south-facing slope gets the sun on bright days but also glare, so a blind is worth adding. A north-facing slope gives a steadier, cooler light all day, which many people prefer over a desk or a kitchen worktop. The glass can be chosen to suit either, and the survey is the moment to say which matters more to you.
Fixing the position
We mark the opening on the slope, hold a tape to the rafters in the loft and confirm the line from inside the room. That means the window lands where the light is wanted, not wherever the framing happens to be easiest.
Glenfield, listed buildings and long drives: what people ask
Is Glenfield covered by Leicester City Council?
No. Planning in Glenfield is run by Blaby District Council, even though Leicester is next door. We ask Blaby about your address, check whether it falls in the Glenfield conservation area, and let you know what we find before anything is ordered.
My house is on the old Faire Estate. Will that cause trouble for a rooflight?
Not in itself. The age tells us to look closely at the covering and the timber, and we do that from the loft during the survey, with a torch and a tape rather than a guess. Then we say what the roof will take and where the opening should go. Only after that do we write a price.
We are 28 miles from you. Will it cost more?
No. We quote in writing after the survey, and the figure is fixed, with the drive from Nottingham already allowed for. The survey carries no charge, and we come to your home since we have no showroom.
Could a big tree near the roof cause trouble for a rooflight?
Leaves and moss gather round the frame, so we build the surround to shed them and keep it within reach for cleaning. Trimming overhanging branches helps too. The glass itself is not harmed by shade, but it will not light a room if the canopy sits right on top of it.