Skylights and rooflights in Moretonhampstead

Moretonhampstead grew as a market town on the road across the moor's eastern flank, and the centre still reads that way. The old streets run out from the square, lined with houses built from whatever the ground offered: granite, cob on a stone plinth, and brick or stone later on. Many of the older walls are rendered or limewashed, and they are thick enough that the windows sit deep in the reveals.

Some of the oldest buildings are low, long and thatched. The cottages and terraces in the lanes behind the square tend to be small in plan, with steep stairs and little spare height under the roof. Nineteenth century growth added slate-roofed terraces and villas, and later estates and infill on the edges of the town brought brick and render semis and bungalows.

That variety is why we start with a simple question when you contact us: is your house in the old centre, on a later street, or out in the countryside around it?

Beyond the town, the farms and barns in the surrounding parishes are a different job again. Farmhouses with deep granite walls, converted barns with long roof slopes and agricultural buildings turned into homes all turn up on the roads out.

That variety is why we start with a simple question when you contact us: is your house in the old centre, on a later street, or out in the countryside around it?

Because Moretonhampstead is inside the national park, planning decisions here are made by Dartmoor National Park Authority. National parks are what the planning regulations call Article 2(3) land, and some householder permitted development rights are narrower there than elsewhere. On an ordinary house a rooflight normally falls within the householder allowance, subject to limits on how far it stands off the slope and how high it rises, but confirm the position with the Authority before you commit to a design.

The centre of the town is also a conservation area, and a conservation area can be covered by an Article 4 direction that takes Class C away. Listed buildings add another layer. A listed building needs formal consent for an outside change such as a rooflight, and that consent can reach inside to the ceiling and roof timbers too. The few flats and maisonettes in converted buildings sit outside the householder allowance altogether.

In practice, the Authority looks hard at anything seen from the street or from the open moor. A rear slope, a slim unit sitting close to the slate and an opening that lines up with the rafters all help an application. The general limits are covered by our Devon rules guide, and our conservation rooflights page covers the narrow-framed units that suit sensitive roofs.

The right unit depends on the building and the protection it carries. These pairings usually work:

• Listed or conservation-area cottages: one slim conservation rooflight in the rear slope, sized to fit between the rafters.
• Slate-roofed Victorian houses with loft rooms: a roof window, either centre-pivot or top-hung, with a laminated inner pane.
• Barn conversions and farmhouses: larger roof windows, or a run of low-profile rooflights along a long slope.
• Extensions and garden rooms: either a roof lantern on a kerb or a low flat unit.
• Dark landings and internal bathrooms: a sun tunnel, which squeezes in where a full window cannot.

Glazing follows the room, so the glass is decided after we have stood in it.

Most lofts in the older houses have very little headroom. Where it is short, the position of the handle and the swing of the sash both need planning, and an electric opening rooflight can be opened from the floor below without reaching up into the slope.

Glazing follows the room, so the glass is decided after we have stood in it. A south-west bedroom may want solar control glass to hold back the late sun, while a north-facing landing gets more from clear glass that insulates well. Whatever we fit complies with the Part L heat-loss rules. If the entire unit comes out, frame and glass together, the work is notifiable too, and that paperwork is ours.

We drive out to Moretonhampstead from Exeter and survey in the town as well as the villages and farms nearby. We begin on the outside, studying the roof. After that we enter the loft and the room, measure how far the roof sits above the ceiling, establish the ceiling's make-up and record anything that could show in the finish, from a cob wall to a low beam.

The centre has tight lanes and little off-street parking, and some farm tracks are steep and narrow, so access gets worked out during the visit: where materials come off the van, whether we need a tower or scaffold and where it would stand. Putting scaffolding on a public road takes a licence from Devon County Council, the highway authority. On a national park or listed job, the same visit produces the detail an application to Dartmoor National Park Authority needs.

Once the survey is done a written price follows, and the job starts when you accept it. We contain dust throughout, hand back a clean room and attach ten years of workmanship cover to the fitting. Our patch includes Chagford, further round the moor edge, and in Bovey Tracey to the south east. To fix a date, send the quote form, or message us on our WhatsApp line. The address for email is info@brightviewskylightsexeter.co.uk. Our homepage describes the full service, and our areas page shows everywhere we cover.