Northop's cottages by the parish church and the rooflights and skylights for them
Stone cottages under Welsh slate beside the parish church, converted farm buildings on the lanes and later estate houses at the village edge shape rooflight installation in Northop. A skylight here has to suit thick walls, deep roof timbers and open Flintshire farmland on every side.
22.3 road miles south-west of Liverpool city centre
What leaves a Northop cottage dark under such a big roof?
- The cottage bedroomBeside the church, a stone cottage's thick walls, small windows and low ceiling leave the upstairs bedroom with one narrow opening for light.
- The barn conversionInside a converted farm building on a lane outside the village, where a long slope of roof sits over rooms that have only a few windows cut in thick masonry.
- The estate-house landingAlong the inner landing of a newer house in Northop Hall or on the village edge, a stairwell with windows nowhere near it and no easy route for daylight.
Cottage bedrooms, barn conversions, estate landings
Skylight installation in Northop covers old stone cottages and farm conversions at one end and detached family houses and edge-of-village bungalows at the other, and each gets a different kind of rooflight.
- Lanterns for the rear extensions added to stone houses and bungalows, sized to the opening the existing structure can carry.
- Flat rooflights for single-storey additions to older houses, built up on an upstand so the covering stays dry around the glass.
- Roof windows for the slate pitches of cottages and barn conversions, set between rafters that are often wide and far apart.
- Well-insulated units for the old stone houses, where heat leaving through the glass is felt in rooms that already run cold in winter.
Stone cottages, farm conversions and the houses that came after
Northop is a village in Flintshire with an old stone centre. The parish church of St Eurgain and St Peter anchors it, and around that core sit stone cottages and houses with thick walls, small windows and slate roofs that have been patched and re-laid many times. Local stone gives the village its colour. A roof that has lasted generations is a sturdy thing, but it was built for keeping weather out and little else, and the rooms beneath it often have far less light than their size deserves.
Beyond the centre the village is surrounded by farmland, and a good deal of that farmland now holds buildings that no longer farm. Barns, cart sheds and stable ranges have been converted into houses, and they come with long roof slopes, big timbers and rooms that were never designed to have windows at all. These are the roofs where a rooflight does most good, because it can bring light into the part of the building that has the most room. Many barn roofs have purlins and rafters at spacings that vary from bay to bay, so a roof window is chosen after the timbers have been measured and not before.
Newer housing arrived in layers. Inter-war and post-war houses stand in Northop Hall, the neighbouring village, and at the edge of Northop, along with later estates of detached and semi-detached homes: tiled roofs, integral garages and landings at the heart of the plan. Bungalows are common in the quieter lanes, and many have a loft that was left alone or converted to a single room with a very small window. In those lofts, a window set into the back slope often lifts the room more than any change at the gable would, and the stairs below can borrow the light.
Each of these roofs makes its own demands. A stone cottage with a low eave line wants a modest roof window that fits between rafters without disturbing too much of the structure. A barn conversion can carry a long run of units along one slope. A modern estate house can take a standard-sized window or a sun tunnel, and the choice depends mostly on what is above the landing.
Old stone and farm roofs
- Slate or stone slate, often uneven
- Timbers that vary from bay to bay
- Rooms where the roof is the only wall left to light them
- Survey first, size second
Newer houses and bungalows
- Concrete or clay tile on regular rafters
- Standard roof window sizes usually fit
- Sun tunnels suit the windowless landing
- Lanterns and flat rooflights on extensions
Hills to the west, open fields all around and thick timbers overhead
Northop sits on gently rolling Flintshire land, with Halkyn Mountain rising to the north-west and the Dee estuary lying further north. The wind that matters most comes from the south-west, and what it meets depends on the street. A cottage hemmed in by neighbours and trees is fairly sheltered. A house on a lane across open fields, or a barn conversion on a hillside, stands in the full weather with nothing taller beside it. Rain driven across fields reaches the roof without having lost anything on the way, so the flashing around a new opening has to be built for the exposed case.
What the roof is covered with decides how we work. Welsh slate lasts, yet after a century or more some slates crack the moment they are shifted. We lift as few as we can and bring matching slate in for the surround, and where a roof is stone slate the pieces are heavier and the courses vary in size, so the flashing is cut and dressed to the courses as they are. Tile roofs on the newer houses are easier, with interlocking profiles and standard flashing kits matched to the tile height.
Thick timber is the other point. In old barns and cottages the rafters can be wider than modern ones, and the spacing is rarely even, so a window that fits one bay may not fit the next. Where a rafter has to be cut we trim and support the opening, and older timbers need a careful look for rot or past insect damage ahead of the first cut. That is a survey job, and the findings go into the fixed written quote.
Insulation matters more here than in a newer suburb. Stone houses are slow to warm, and a poorly insulated rooflight loses heat into a room that is already cold. Modern double-glazed roof windows and rooflights are good enough that the unit itself is rarely the problem, but the way it is lined and sealed at the reveal makes the difference between a bright, comfortable room and one with a cold patch at the head of the window.
Access is straightforward on most Northop properties. Lanes are narrow in places, but there is usually yard or garden space for a tower, and a barn conversion with a clear slope is an easy roof to work on. Cottages by the church are tighter on access, so a roof window there can sometimes be installed from within the roof space when the front elevation is awkward to reach.
- Stone slate or Welsh slate, and how much of it will lift sound
- Rafter width and the gap between them in the bay you want
- Any sign of rot or woodworm in the timbers around the opening
- South-west exposure of the slope in question
- Where the tower can stand on the lane or in the yard
Welsh planning rules, Cadw listings and a Flintshire sign-off
Across the border in Wales, as Northop is, planning and Building Control run on different rules from England's. Flintshire County Council decides planning, and permitted development here comes from the Welsh Government's amended version of the General Permitted Development Order. How permitted development treats a rooflight has its own answer, and planning guidance from the Welsh Government is on gov.wales. We look at your roof against those rules at the survey.
Older properties are where the care goes. Any listed house or farm building in or around the village must have listed building consent before a rooflight goes in. In Wales, Cadw oversees listed buildings, and its guidance is published at cadw.gov.wales. What a listed building application needs is set out in the consent route for a listed roof. The older core of the village may also lie in a conservation area, and Flintshire County Council can confirm at flintshire.gov.uk whether your street does, and whether any extra controls apply there.
The front of a house always deserves a second look. On a cottage, glass in the road-facing slope changes how the building looks from the lane, and when a front-slope roof window needs the council explains where that becomes a planning matter. A rear or lane-hidden slope is a simpler conversation, and a conversion barn with a hidden courtyard roof is simpler still.
Before the work begins, Flintshire County Council's building control service receives the Welsh notification from us on your behalf, and the Building Regulations route in brief sets out the rest. Wales keeps its own regime here, so the English guidance you may find online does not carry across.
Several of the farm conversions around the village sit under long single slopes with no neighbour in the way, so a row of roof windows can be planned as a set, spaced to the bays and kept in line from the lane.
- Survey the roof and the house, including whether it is listed or in a protected area.
- Confirm the planning position against the Welsh rules before a unit is ordered.
- Agree the unit, with the flashing and finish named in writing ahead of the order.
- Notify Building Control through the council or an approver, which we do for you.
Northop roofs: what to ask before we climb up
Our Northop cottage is listed. Can it have a rooflight at the back?
It may, but only with listed building consent, which in Wales is handled through the council with Cadw advising on listed buildings. On a listed roof, a flush conservation unit at the back has a far better chance than anything facing the road. Our survey of the roof produces the drawings and product details the application will want.
We have a barn conversion near Northop with a huge roof and dark rooms. Where do we start?
Start with the timbers. We measure the rafters and the gaps between them in each bay, check the covering and look at how the roof is insulated. Then we propose a layout of roof windows or a lantern that suits the structure, with every unit named and placed on the plan before you commit.
Do you cover Northop Hall and the lanes around the village as well?
Northop Hall, the farms and the lanes around the village all fall within this page. The visit works the same wherever the house stands. A property in a neighbouring village with its own page, such as Mold or Flint, belongs on that page.
Our Northop cottage has deep walls. Will a roof window light the room or only the ceiling?
Thick walls make the roof the best way to light a deep-walled room. A roof window brings the sky straight down, and a splayed reveal at the head spreads that light across the ceiling and walls instead of stopping at the frame. The rafter depth adds to the opening, so the lining is sized at the survey.
Our Northop Hall landing has no window. Which rooflight reaches it?
An estate-house landing with no daylight is usually given a sun tunnel, since the tube runs through the loft from a small dome on the tiles and needs no structural opening. In a bungalow with a boarded loft we check the route between joists first. Where a converted loft room sits above the stairs, a roof window in that room may light the stairwell instead.
Mold a few miles south, Flint down on the estuary
Separate pages cover Mold, a few miles to the south, and Flint, down on the Dee estuary.
Free survey
Get a fixed quote in Northop
- No obligation
- We survey the roof before we price
- WhatsApp or phone, whichever suits
What happens next: we arrange a survey at a time that suits you, measure the roof and the room, then send a fixed written quote. Nothing is booked until you say yes.