Due north of the city, 15 miles by road
Skylights & rooflights in Rainworth
A former colliery village on the Sherwood side of Nottinghamshire, built out in the 1950s and after. Estate houses with dim landings, and kitchens that turn their backs on winter light.
A village at the edge of the forest
Rainworth sits beside heathland and woodland, and the sky above it is wide and often grey. Its houses went up in quick bursts as the pit grew, planned around the walls and the road rather than the roof.
Rainworth, house by house and road by road
Rainworth is a village in Nottinghamshire with 7,990 people on record, divided between the districts of Newark and Sherwood and of Mansfield. The pit shaped it, and the estates built for its workforce set out the streets. This page takes the council question first, then the houses, the heath, the roads and the products we recommend. Readers new to us may prefer the overview of skylight installation in Nottingham.
01
A village split between two councils
Rainworth is unusual for planning, because a district boundary runs through it. We name Newark and Sherwood as the authority for the village, yet part of Rainworth lies on the Mansfield side. So our first question to you is a plain one: which road are you on?
If your home is in the Mansfield part, Mansfield District Council may be the one to ask. We settle that from your address, not from the village name, and before any rooflight is ordered.
What the records hold
There is no conservation area and no listed building within 1.5 km of the village centre. The council holds the definitive map and the Article 4 list, so we check your address against both before anything is ordered. If your house turns out to be listed, the roof cannot be opened without listed building consent. Should a conservation area cover your street, a house there normally keeps its usual right to a rooflight, and the check is for an Article 4 direction.
The rules that apply everywhere
Permitted development and Building Regulations work the same way across England. We keep them on one page, the planning permission for rooflights guide. A single copy stays accurate; repeated copies drift.
The local part is the council, the slope and whether the work is notifiable. When it is, we send the notice to Building Control, so you never have to, and the finished rooflight complies with the regulations current on the day it is fitted.
02
Pit-era estates and what their roofs allow
As the pit prospered, homes were needed, and new housing was built along Kirklington Road. A large estate was built in the 1950s between Station Road and Warsop Lane, remembered as the Wimpey estate. Further out, beyond the original council estate on Kirklington Road, another was built some time after 1965.
That leaves Rainworth with several layers of mid-century housing. Roofs on streets like these tend to repeat from one house to the next. Once we know how one is built we can say a lot about its neighbours, but every house still gets its own survey, since later work changes the picture.
Dim middles
Houses of this kind often keep the hall and landing in the centre of the plan, away from any outside wall, so the stairwell is the darkest place in the house at exactly the hour you come home in winter. A sun tunnel is the first thing we consider for such a space, because a landing under a pitched roof with a loft above it gives the tube a clear run. The dome sits on the slope, the tube crosses the loft and the diffuser sits in the ceiling. A bulb stops being the only light.
| Space | Why it is dim | Usual answer |
|---|---|---|
| Hall and landing | No outside wall | Sun tunnel |
| Loft room | Small gable window | Roof window |
| Rear kitchen | Lit from one end | Flat rooflight |
Lofts and extensions
Where the loft is already boarded or converted, a roof window gives the room a view and a way to ventilate. Rear extensions bring a different trouble: a kitchen that has grown away from the back window and is lit from one end only. A rooflight over the dark middle is the usual remedy.
Structure comes before promises. A new opening in a roof alters its frame and its heat loss, which is why it normally falls under Building Regulations, and we deal with that as part of the job. The colliery site was once earmarked for a waste incinerator, with plans drafted from 2006 and later withdrawn after strong local opposition.
- Sun tunnel
- A dome on the roof linked by a mirrored tube to a disc in the ceiling.
- Diffuser
- The ceiling panel that spreads the light coming down a sun tunnel.
- Kerb
- A raised frame on a flat roof, round the opening, that the rooflight sits on.
03
Heathland, cycle route and a very open sky
What the Sherwood side of the county means for a roof.
Rainworth Heath nature reserve lies 0.9 km from the village centre, and Strawberry Hill Heath a little over two kilometres away. National Cycle Route 6 comes through the village from Worksop and carries on into Sherwood Forest. Woodland, heath and open ground are all within easy reach.
Open ground means a lot of sky, and for a rooflight that counts. A rooflight works by seeing as much sky as it can. Where rooflines are low and tall buildings few, a unit on the right slope looks at a broad piece of overcast and keeps a room readable at three on a November afternoon.
Trees, needles and gutters
Woodland drops leaves and, near pines, needles. A flat roof needs a kerb tall enough that debris settles below the glass line. On a pitched roof the flashing should suit the tile or slate, so leaf litter slides by instead of lodging against the frame.
Damp weeks and cold glass
Near forest the air stays damp, and condensation follows. Glass chills faster than the walls, so steam from cooking or a shower lands there first. Good sealed glazing holds the inner pane warmer than a cheap unit would, and a rooflight that opens lets steam out before it drips.
An exposed plot also puts more wind on the roof edge, so fixings and flashings are checked on the same visit.
Placement counts for as much as the opening's dimensions: a rooflight on the slope that sees the most open sky will outperform a larger one tucked beneath a taller neighbour or a mature tree. We stand in the garden on the survey and look up, because the view from the roof is the view the glass will have, and in the months from October to March that view is mostly cloud.
04
The bypass, the closed station and the van
From the city centre, Rainworth is 15 miles by road to the north and about half an hour by van in normal traffic. The A617 and the B6020 are the classified roads nearest the village centre. The A617 dual carriageway passes to the north as a bypass and has done since it opened in 2000.
Trains are gone. The local service stopped and the station closed in 1965, and the former Blidworth and Rainworth station, 0.6 km from the centre, is recorded as closed. That makes no difference to a survey.
What a visit involves
No charge is made for the survey. We start inside, with the room: where daylight falls, where it fails, and what the ceiling is made of. Then we go to the roof to check slope, covering, structure and drainage. The written quote that follows carries one price, and that price does not shift on the day.
15road miles
from the middle of Nottingham
30minutes
typical drive, quiet roads
2000opened
the A617 bypass north of the village
Access
At booking we ask whether the garden can be reached without going through the house, and where the van can stand.
Neighbouring villages
Villages and towns around Rainworth fall inside the same service area. The areas we cover page names every place within 30 road miles of Nottingham.
05
Three jobs that come up on estate roofs
Rainworth's big estates went up from the 1950s on, and three kinds of work suit them.
Light for a landing
Small on the roof, and often the best answer for a landing without a window. Choosing between a rigid tube and a flexible one depends on how much loft space lies between the roof and the ceiling, and we decide that on the survey. The dome is flashed to the covering first, then the tube runs through the loft and the ceiling diffuser goes in last, so the room below is only disturbed at the end.
A roof window for the loft
This turns a boarded loft into a room with a view. We position it so that someone seated can see out, and fit flashing that matches your tile or slate. Seen from the garden, the finished window sits just proud of the slope, and a flashing in a matching colour makes its edge hard to spot. We also note which way the slope faces: a west or south slope takes the weather on the roof first, and that is where the quality of the flashing counts most.
A flat rooflight for a kitchen extension
A kitchen pushed out at the back often has a flat roof over its far end. A rooflight there lights the part of the room the garden window never reaches. We build the kerb to a height that keeps standing water away from the glass.
Replacements as well as new work
If an old rooflight is cloudy between the panes or its frame is spent, we take it out and fit another. The new unit may sit on the existing opening, or the whole kerb may need attention; the survey tells us which. Our workmanship carries a written guarantee of ten years.
Small commercial jobs
A unit, a workshop or an office is covered too. We survey it the same way and send a fixed written quote after the visit.
What Rainworth homeowners tend to ask first
Which council do I speak to if I live in Rainworth?
That depends on which side of the district line your home sits. Newark and Sherwood is the council we name for the village, but part of Rainworth falls under Mansfield. Quote us your address when you book. We confirm the council, then ask it about listing and conservation status before we order a thing.
Will a sun tunnel really light a landing in a 1950s house?
Yes, provided there is a clear run from roof to ceiling. A dome on the slope feeds a mirrored tube and a diffuser spreads the light. On a grey day the landing looks noticeably brighter, though a sun tunnel gives less than a roof window would. We check the loft space on the visit.
Do you replace an old rooflight on a flat extension roof?
We do. The old unit, the kerb and the roof covering all get a look. Some rooflights can be swapped on the existing kerb, while others need the kerb rebuilt. The written quote after the survey says which, with one price.
Is Rainworth inside your area?
It is, at 15 road miles from the city centre against our limit of 30. Showrooms are not part of the picture; we visit you.