South-south-west, 3.9 road miles out of Nottingham
Skylights & rooflights in Wilford
A Trent-side village that the city absorbed in 1952, with a protected core and brick houses all round it. Rooms here get plenty of weather and not always much sky.
A crossing older than the houses
Remains of a paved Roman ford were found in the Trent at Wilford in 1900. People have been getting across this water for a very long time. The roofs we work on now belong to a far later layer of that story.
Wilford, a village inside the city
Wilford is a village and former civil parish with a recorded population of 4,849. It lies south-west of West Bridgford and north-east of Clifton, and is part of Nottingham in every planning sense. The chapters below start with the question that settles most jobs here, which is what is protected. Then come the roads, the houses and the water. If you want the firm behind them, read about skylight installation in Nottingham.
01
Planning first: a village inside the city
Wilford is a village, yet it lies inside the City of Nottingham, so the planning authority is Nottingham City Council. The village was taken into the city in 1952, as a land bridge between Nottingham and the newly built Clifton Estate. Anything you ask about a rooflight goes to the city council.
Listed buildings and the Wilford Village area
The conservation area covering the village centre point is Wilford Village. It contains fifteen listed buildings, of which one is Grade II* and fourteen are Grade II. A second area, Wilford House, lies about 0.8 km away with two Grade II buildings. Two more recorded areas, named Canal and Station, sit some 1.5 km out. Neither carries the village's name, yet together they show how much protected ground lies around Wilford. Historic England's list has 40 entries in the 1.5 km circle round the village point: one Grade II* and thirty-nine Grade II.
Designation dates matter less to a rooflight than two plain questions asked at the kitchen table on a dull November afternoon. Is your house listed, and does your street fall inside the Wilford Village area? We put that to the council before anything is ordered.
40entries
on the national list inside a 1.5 km circle
15listed
inside the Wilford Village conservation area
What that changes
If the house is on the national list, the roof cannot be opened up until listed building consent is in place. Being in the conservation area does not stop a low, flush unit on the front or the back of a house; a direction under Article 4 would, so we look that up first. The England-wide rules are set out once, in planning permission for rooflights, so we leave them there.
Where Building Control must be told about a job, we do the telling, and it goes to the city council's building control team or else a registered building control approver. The finished work meets current Building Regulations.
02
Getting to you: the A52, the tram and the Trent
3.9road miles
from the city centre
9minutes
driving time, with normal traffic
Heading south-south-west out of the city centre, you reach Wilford after 3.9 road miles, which is around nine minutes at the wheel. The A453, A52, B679 and B680 all pass within a kilometre or so of the village. The A52 also serves Wilford Industrial Estate, where a large supplies distributor is based for its reach onto the M1.
For a village, public transport is close. The NET tram stop at Wilford Village is 0.3 km from the centre point, with Meadows Embankment at 0.6 km and Wilford Lane at 0.9 km. Nottingham railway station is 1.7 km away. Our van uses none of it, but it shows that Wilford is a short hop from the middle of the city rather than a remote outpost.
What the survey looks at
The survey is free and it comes before any figure. We stand in the room first and find where the light gives out. Next comes the roof itself: the covering, the structure beneath it, the pitch and where rain runs to. Only after all that do we put a price on paper. It is fixed, so the number you sign is the number you pay.
| Stop | Distance |
|---|---|
| Wilford Village | 0.3 km |
| Meadows Embankment | 0.6 km |
| Wilford Lane | 0.9 km |
| NG2 | 1 km |
Tight streets
If the roads are narrow or lined with parked cars, we ask when the visit is booked where the van can wait and how we reach the rear of the house. A short conversation about access saves a lot of carrying.
03
Brick houses where the cottages used to be
Over the years the village changed character. Modern brick-built houses replaced its old thatched cottages, and the land across the water was industrialised once Clifton Colliery opened in 1870. By the boundary change of 1952 the newly built Clifton Estate stood next door, and St Wilfrid's parish today covers Wilford, Silverdale and a large part of the Compton Acres estate.
We read each Wilford roof as it stands, working from the covering through the framing to the loft, and we let that decide the product. A village rebuilt in layers holds roofs of several ages, and the age tells us what to expect in the loft.
Older roofs and newer ones
A house framed with hand-cut rafters can often take a roof window of almost any width, because the carpenter trims around the gap. A roof made of factory trusses behaves differently. The trusses carry the load, so an opening must sit between them or be supported by extra structure designed for it. On the survey we climb into the loft, identify which kind you have and measure the gaps before naming a size.
- Rafter
- A sloping timber running from ridge to wall that carries the tiles or slates.
- Truss
- A factory-made triangular frame that is the roof structure and bears its weight.
- Trimmer
- A short cross timber set between rafters to box in a new opening.
- Glazing unit
- The sealed double or triple pane held inside a rooflight frame.
Where the light is lost
In a brick-built house with a long back room, the dim part is rarely the garden end. It is the middle, where a hall, a stairwell or a bathroom has no outside wall. A landing with no window is the commonest case, and it is where a small rooflight or a light pipe earns its keep.
Swapping a tired unit
If a rooflight in the house has misted glass or a frame that no longer closes, fitting a new unit into the old opening can be neater than cutting afresh. The survey tells us which route suits the roof.
04
Rivers, canals and what damp does to a roof
Water is close in every direction here.
The River Trent, the River Leen, the Beeston Canal and the Nottingham Canal all flow or lie no more than 1.5 km from the village. Wilford Green sits 0.9 km from the centre point, the Memorial Gardens 1.1 km, Queen's Walk Recreation Ground 1.2 km and Ruddington Lane Recreation Ground 1.5 km. Iremonger Pond Local Nature Reserve is closer at 0.3 km. Borough Hill, Spinny Hill and Wilford Hill all rise within about three kilometres.
The place has had more than one working life. A coal-fired power station stood on the north bank of the Trent until it was demolished. Today the setting reads as green and damp.
Air that holds moisture
Low ground by a river is often misty in the cold months, and a grey morning leaves glass chilled for hours. Steam from kettles and showers lands on the coldest surface in a room, which is usually the glazing. A warm-edge spacer in a good sealed unit keeps the inside pane nearer to room warmth. A rooflight that opens, or a vent in its frame, lets steam out before it forms drips on the ceiling.
Leaves and standing water
Trees in the parks and along the river drop leaves onto flat roofs. They pile against the upstand, the raised border a flat rooflight sits on, and hold water there. We build that border tall enough that a wet week never lifts water to the glass, and we slope the roof finish away from it. On a tiled or slated pitch we pick the flashing kit to match the covering, which lets debris wash past.
05
What tends to suit a Wilford house
The right product depends on where the dark is. Three come up for a brick-built village like this, and each does a different job.
A flat roof over a rear extension
When a single-storey addition runs back from the house, the middle of that room often stays dim. A flat rooflight over the darkest stretch lets in sky from straight above, the strongest light you get beneath cloud. Our page on flat roof rooflights covers sizes, fixed and opening types and how the upstand is formed.
A loft room or an attic bedroom
A room under a sloping ceiling suits a roof window. From the bed or the desk it shows the sky and lets the air be freshened. Put low enough to look out of while seated, it alters how the room feels from October to March.
A landing or an inside bathroom
If a room has no external wall, a sun tunnel brings in light through a short mirrored pipe, from a dome on the tiles to a diffuser in the ceiling. The change outside is tiny. Indoors on a dull afternoon it is anything but.
Guarantee and next step
Whatever we fit, new or as a replacement, the ten-year guarantee on our workmanship comes in writing. The survey costs nothing, and the quote you get afterwards is a fixed one. Other places we work are listed under areas we cover.
Asked before a Wilford survey
Is Wilford planning handled by Nottingham City Council?
Yes. Wilford joined the City of Nottingham in 1952, which makes Nottingham City Council the planning authority. Part of the village falls in the Wilford Village conservation area, and listed buildings stand nearby. We ask the council about your address before anything is ordered, and file the Building Control paperwork whenever the job requires it.
My house is near the church. Would a roof window be allowed?
That turns on two things: whether the house is listed, and whether the street lies inside the conservation area. Many rear-slope roof windows are straightforward. A listed building calls for consent first; on a front slope we just confirm there is no Article 4 direction. We check the position with the council first, and say what is likely before a fixed price is given.
Can you light a landing that has no window at all?
Usually. With loft space above the landing, a sun tunnel can run up through it to a diffuser in the ceiling. Where the landing is right under the slope, a small roof window may do more. The free survey settles which suits your roof, and the written quote afterwards stays put.
Do you work in the Meadows and on the Clifton side?
Yes. The Meadows lies about 0.9 km from Wilford's centre point, and our patch is everything reachable in 30 road miles from Nottingham. Nobody needs to visit a showroom, because we come to the house. The free survey is step one wherever you live in that area.