Skylights and rooflights under Tyldesley's cotton-era rows and estate attics
Rooflight installation in Tyldesley deals with roofs shaped by cotton and coal: brick terraces in long rows, older buildings in new use, and suburban estates up on the higher ground. Most carry slate or tile, many have a flat extension at the back, and a skylight has to cope with a ridge open to the weather.
28.6 road miles east of Liverpool city centre
Where does a Tyldesley terrace lose its light?
- The mill-row stairsA mill-worker's terrace stair rises between two party walls, and the only light is whatever drifts in from the front door.
- The back-extension kitchenIn a kitchen on a Shakerley or Mosley Common semi that has been extended into the garden, with a flat roof overhead and a deep room that the old back window cannot reach.
- The estate atticUp in the attic of a post-war estate house, where the roof pitch is steep enough to convert but the room has lost its brightness to a single small gable window.
Mill-row stairs and back-extension kitchens
Tyldesley has mill-era terraces and converted industrial buildings, then inter-war semis, then later estates, so skylight installation in Tyldesley is chosen to suit each roof and the room under it.
- A semi's rear kitchen extension takes a flat rooflight standing on a raised kerb, with the covering lapped up the kerb sides.
- Slate and tile terrace slopes take roof windows flashed to their covering, with the frame fitted around rafters cut for a much lighter load.
- Opening rooflights for attic bedrooms on the estates, vented by a switch so the heat that gathers under the tiles has a way out.
- Converted buildings and rear yards use walk-on glass set into a flat roof or terrace floor, passing light to the room below.
Cotton, coal and the order the town was built in
Tyldesley was a handloom weaving village that grew with the arrival of cotton spinning in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and then with coal mining. Both left their mark on the roofs. The oldest houses are the cottages and terraces near the centre, built in rows for people who walked to the mill or the pit, and the rest of the town spread out around them.
A mill-era terrace has brick walls and a pitched slate roof, with two rooms up, two down and a steep stair squeezed between party walls. Rafters are often slim and lofts are low, because nobody planned to live in them. A good number of these houses now have a rear outrigger or a flat-roofed kitchen extension added in the twentieth century, usually with a window that no longer gives the room much light.
The cotton mills themselves were large, and many have since been demolished. Where an older building in the town has been converted into flats, it follows a different set of rules from a house, because the roof is shared, and permissions and responsibilities lie with the owner of the building. A rooflight there is a question for the management company first.
Inter-war and post-war housing arrived on the town's edges, in places such as Mosley Common and Shakerley, with hipped tile roofs, hall-and-landing layouts and gardens large enough to extend into. Later estates are brick with concrete tiles and pre-fabricated trusses, a roof in which the loft is a dry, open volume but the structural members have to be left alone or carefully trimmed.
A terrace loft needs particular care at the party wall. Identical houses in a row share a wall that continues through the loft, so a roof window must clear it with space left for framing and flashing on each side. In many rows the chimney breasts also stand in the way, so the usable width of the slope can be less than it looks from the street. Surveying from inside the loft as well as from the yard shows which windows are possible, and sometimes the answer is one wider unit instead of two narrow ones.
Colliery housing adds a further type. Rows put up for pit families are often plain, with roofs that have been re-covered several times, sometimes in concrete tile over what was once slate. Rafter sizes there vary from row to row, so the opening is planned from what the loft shows rather than from what the neighbours had done.
Over all of this sits the same common point: many people in Tyldesley already live in the loft, or want to, and the question is how to bring daylight into a room under the roof.
- Look at the loft We check the height, the rafter or truss layout and what has already been done to the space.
- Choose the opening The roof window size is picked to sit between the structure, not against it.
- Frame and flash The opening is trimmed, the unit fitted and the flashing dressed to the covering.
- Finish inside The lining, splay and a clean-up complete the room.
Higher ground, a heavy slate and the back-alley access
Tyldesley Top takes its name from the higher ground on which the older part of the town sits, and the roofs on that ridge are the ones that see the weather. The prevailing wind is south-westerly, and the ridge stands above the lower ground around it. Exposed streets up on the ridge catch more than the lower hollows do, and on a west-facing slope the side flashings of a roof window carry the heaviest push of wind and rain.
The mining past matters in a quiet way: in a town like this, older houses have settled and shifted over the decades. A roof may sag slightly along its ridge, and an opening cut into a slightly bowed roof needs the frame set square to the real line of the roof, not the line a drawing assumes. Checking this at the survey saves a poorly seated unit. Where the ridge has dropped a little, the lining inside is cut to the real angle too, so the finished splay looks straight to the eye and the plasterboard meets the ceiling without a visible gap.
Exposure also shows at the ridge and the verge. Tiles and slates along an exposed edge are clipped or bedded to resist wind lift, and a roof window near the verge or ridge is positioned so those fixings are not disturbed. A unit set in the middle of the slope has the most protection from the roof around it, and one near the edge is only worth considering when the room below demands it.
Slate on the terraces is heavy and often original. After a hundred years or more it can be brittle, and slates around a new opening lift best by hand, one at a time, so the sound ones can be reused. A matching slate is brought for any that crack. On the tiled semis, the roof carries a modern profile, and the flashing apron is chosen for that profile.
Terraces here often have a back alley, which is the usual way into the yard. A narrow alley limits what can be carried in, so units are sized with the route in mind, and tools and materials are lifted over the back wall where necessary. Parked-solid front streets are common, and putting scaffold on the public pavement means a council licence.
Flat extension roofs are common behind the terraces. Felt, single-ply or fibreglass covers them, and the rooflight or lantern stands on a raised kerb that the covering is turned up to meet. The fall of the deck is the first thing to confirm.
Terraces on the ridge
- Slate, bowed ridges and low lofts
- West-facing slopes take the weather
- Back-alley access limits unit size
Estates and extensions
- Tile on trusses or a flat felt roof
- Room for a tower in the garden
- Kerb and fall decide the rooflight
Wigan Council, converted buildings and who signs off
Wigan Council decides planning in Tyldesley, and for an ordinary house a pitched-roof rooflight is generally permitted development; the page on permitted development limits lists the conditions, which we test on your roof rather than repeat. The slope facing the road needs thought, and the page on road-facing roof windows covers it.
Conservation area boundaries and Article 4 directions are published at wigan.gov.uk, so look up your street there first. Where the street is covered, councils tend to favour flush, slim units, as the notes on rooflights for protected areas describe. Listed status applies to some older buildings here, among them St George's Church and Top Chapel, and anything listed needs listed building consent. You can look one up on the National Heritage List at historicengland.org.uk.
Flats in a converted building lack the permitted development rights that a house has. The roof belongs to the freeholder, so the first conversation is with them.
Many Tyldesley homeowners turn to the same paperwork question when a loft becomes a bedroom: is the work notifiable, and is the stair safe? A new roof window falls under the Building Regulations in its own right, and a conversion adds structure, fire and escape requirements. How room height affects an escape window is explained under roof windows as a way out of a loft.
Every job closes with a certificate, issued by Wigan Council's building control service as a completion certificate, or by an approver as a final certificate, while the Building Regulations page for rooflights shows what it checks.
| Building | First step | Building Control |
|---|---|---|
| House on an ordinary street | Check conditions on the planning answer | We notify |
| House in a conservation area | Ask Wigan Council about Article 4 | We notify |
| Listed building | Listed building consent | We notify |
| Flat in a converted building | Freeholder, then the council | We notify |
Tyldesley homeowners ask before the survey
Our old terrace off Elliott Street has a low loft. Can a roof window really make it a room?
A low terrace loft can become a room if the height under the ridge and the section of the timbers allow it. We measure the loft and check the rafters and any purlin, and where headroom is short a roof window still lights the space.
What would a rooflight involve on the flat-roofed kitchen extension of our Shakerley semi?
The unit sits on a kerb raised above the deck, and the roof covering is dressed up the kerb and sealed. The joists, deck and fall are checked before anything is priced, so the number on the written quote holds.
Does this page cover Shakerley, Astley and Mosley Common as well as the town centre?
It covers Tyldesley and the estates and edges around it, Shakerley, Astley and Mosley Common among them. If your home belongs to a differently named place, the areas list shows which page fits, and we will confirm from your postcode.
Our Tyldesley loft has a chimney breast in the middle of the slope. Does that block a window?
A breast narrows the usable slope but rarely rules a window out. The rafters either side are mapped from inside the loft, and one wider unit beside the stack can replace two narrow ones that would not fit around it. Where the breast sits on the party wall, the neighbour's side is left untouched.
Our flat in a converted Tyldesley building shares its roof with the others. Who has to agree to a rooflight?
The freeholder or management company owns the roof, so their written consent comes first, then Wigan Council if an application is needed. A leaseholder usually cannot alter the roof without that consent, and we can supply the drawings and unit data they ask for.
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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.