5.4 road miles east of Bournemouth
skylights & rooflights in christchurch
The Priory and the High Street anchor the old centre of Christchurch, and the bungalow roads of Somerford, Jumpers and Burton lie beyond. We measure each roof, rafters and pitch, and the readings go into the quote.
the roofs Christchurch actually has
- Detached bungalowsInterwar and post-war, often with a dark inner hallway.
- Chalet bungalowsRooms in the roof with low side walls and a short slope.
- Old town cottagesBrick and render near the Priory, tight streets, older timbers.
- Post-war semisSomerford and Jumpers roads, tiled roofs, usable lofts.
what we check first on a Christchurch address
- planning authority
- BCP Council
- conservation areas
- town centre: check the address
- road miles
- 5.4
Nearby
the priory and the quay
a town of low roofs and old streets
Christchurch grew outward from the Priory and the quay. The result is a compact historic centre wrapped in miles of bungalows and chalet bungalows, and each of those asks something different of a rooflight.
Priory lanes, bungalow avenues and newer edges
The age of the street tells us a lot before we climb the ladder.
The Priory, the castle ruins and the streets running off the High Street hold the older cottages and townhouses of Christchurch, close to where the Stour and the Avon meet at Christchurch Harbour: brick, render, some timber behind the façades, and roofs that have been retiled and altered more than once over the centuries. Rafter spacing on these roofs is rarely regular, which is the first reason we never order a window for an old town house until the tiles have been lifted and the timbers measured.
A mile from the centre the streets look different. Purewell, east of the centre along the old road towards Somerford, mixes older cottages with later infill. Jumpers, to the north-west, and Somerford, to the east, are mostly twentieth-century: interwar and post-war semis, short terraces, and plenty of bungalows. Burton, to the north, has its own village core with bungalows and chalet bungalows spreading out around it. Walkford, beside Highcliffe, is another bungalow-heavy district. Newer estates have been added on the town's edges since, built with trussed roofs and modern tiles.
Newer homes follow a different pattern. A house built with trussed rafters has a roof made of factory-made triangular frames, each one designed to carry load as a whole. Cutting one to make room for a window is not something to do on site without an engineer's design. On these roofs we look first for a window size that fits between two trusses, which on common spacings points towards the narrower size codes, and only go wider with a structural design approved through Building Regulations. Truss spacing decides whether a loft room on an estate house gets one generous window or two slimmer ones side by side.
A request for more light in a dark room means one job in a Priory-quarter terrace, another on a Somerford bungalow and a third in a Burton chalet.
| House type | Typical roof | What we look at |
|---|---|---|
| Old town cottage | Clay tile or slate, cut timbers | Uneven rafters, conservation status |
| Interwar bungalow | Hipped, clay or concrete tile | Loft void depth over the hallway |
| Chalet bungalow | Steep front slope, rooms in roof | Knee wall height, escape size |
| Post-war semi | Concrete interlocking tile | Rafter centres, loft conversion plans |
| Newer estate home | Trussed roof, modern tile | Truss spacing, never cut a truss |
Finding out where your address stands with BCP
Planning in Christchurch is decided by BCP Council, the same authority that covers Bournemouth and Poole.
Christchurch was part of Hampshire until 1974 and had its own borough council until 2019. Since then BCP Council has been the planning authority for the whole town, and its building control service handles notifications here too. If you find an older planning letter in a drawer headed with the former borough's name, the decisions in it still stand, but anything new goes to BCP.
The town centre around the Priory and the High Street is a conservation area, Christchurch Central. Purewell and Burton have conservation areas of their own, and BCP Council holds others across its area, so the safest course is to check the exact address rather than assume a street sits outside a boundary. Where an Article 4 direction applies, as it can in a conservation area, planning permission can be needed for a rooflight on a road-facing slope where it would not be needed elsewhere, and the council may ask for a low-profile design that sits flush with the tiles. Listed buildings are a separate matter again: a new rooflight on a listed building will almost always need listed building consent, whatever the slope.
The planning guide has the permitted development rules in full. BCP Council publishes its planning register and conservation area map online, and you can look at both before we visit.
Checking a Christchurch address before you plan a rooflight
- Look up the conservation mapBCP Council publishes its conservation area boundaries online with an interactive map. Search the full address, not just the street, because boundaries can run down the middle of a road.
- Check whether the house is listedThe National Heritage List for England is searchable by address. Several buildings in the old centre are listed, and a listing covers the whole building, including the roof.
- Search the planning registerBCP's online register shows past applications on your property. A permission granted when the house was built or extended can carry conditions that affect what you add later, so read any decision notice you find.
- Ask us to check at the surveyBefore we quote we check those same records and set out in writing what each one showed. Where an application is needed, BCP Council receives the application, with the survey sheet's measurements attached.
The dark middle of a Christchurch bungalow
Single-storey homes have one advantage for daylight: the roof is directly above every room.
The typical interwar or post-war bungalow in Jumpers, Somerford or Burton has a hallway running through the middle of the plan, with the bedrooms, bathroom and living room arranged around it. The rooms on the outside walls get daylight. The hallway, and often an inner bathroom, get none. In winter that can mean the hall light is on at midday.
Because there is only a loft between that ceiling and the tiles, light can be brought down from the roof in two ways. A roof window fitted in the slope, with a boarded shaft down through the loft, brings in a wide spread of daylight and, if you choose an opening model, some ventilation too. A sun tunnel takes a narrower tube through the loft to a round diffuser in the ceiling, with no structural work on the rafters. The choice usually comes down to how deep the loft is over the hallway and which way the slope faces.
Hipped roofs, common on the bungalows of this period, slope on all four sides, so there is often a choice of slope. A south or west slope gives more direct sun. A north slope takes little direct sun, so the light in a hallway stays even all day. We measure the run from roof to ceiling on every bungalow, because a shaft that has to dog-leg around a purlin changes what is sensible.
Roof window and boarded shaft
- A broad area of daylight across the hall
- Can open for air with the right model
- Needs rafters trimmed and Building Regulations approval
- Shaft is boxed and plastered inside the loft
Sun tunnel through the loft
- A tidy round diffuser in the ceiling
- Rafters left untouched
- Light falls away with longer tubes and bends
- Suits inner bathrooms and short corridors
Upstairs in a chalet bungalow
Christchurch has plenty of them, and their upstairs rooms are where roof windows do the most good.
A chalet bungalow puts its upper rooms inside the roof itself. The ceiling slopes down to short side walls, sometimes no more than knee height, and the original windows are often small gable windows or a single dormer. The result in many Burton and Walkford chalets is an upstairs bedroom that is usable but dim, and warm in summer under the slope.
A roof window in the slope makes the biggest difference to that room. Because the room is already in the roof, there is no shaft to build: the window opens straight into the space. The glass sits higher than a wall window, so it sees more sky. For a bedroom on the first floor of a chalet bungalow, the roof window can double as its escape window if it is big enough and placed right, which is often why owners call us in the first place when they are converting a box room or a loft.
The slope on chalet bungalows varies a lot from street to street, and each maker states a pitch range for every roof window and flashing kit, so the survey records the pitch with an inclinometer before we name a product. Our guide to roof windows for chalet bungalows covers the sizing and the escape rules in more depth.
Ladders, scaffold and the narrow streets near the quay
Getting materials onto a Christchurch roof is easy on a bungalow road and harder in the old centre.
On most bungalows the eaves are low enough that a roof window can be fitted from a platform or a short tower, and a driveway gives somewhere to stage the glass. The old centre is different. Some streets near the Priory and the quay are narrow, parking is restricted, and cottages often share walls with no side access to the back. Where scaffold or a tower has to stand on the pavement or the road, a licence from BCP Council as highway authority is needed, and we build the time for that into the programme rather than discover it the week before.
Flat roofs need their own care. Single-storey rear extensions and garage conversions are common behind Christchurch houses of every age, and a flat rooflight over a kitchen extension is a common way to light the back of the house. The roof covering, the kerb height and the fall all need checking before an order goes in.
On an old town house in the conservation area, a conservation rooflight with slim steel or aluminium framing and a central glazing bar is often what BCP will expect to see on a front slope. Whichever product you choose, you receive our written survey sheet with every measurement on it, so you can compare quotes like for like.
Words from a Christchurch survey sheet
- Kerb
- The raised frame around a flat-roof opening that carries the rooflight, set high enough above the finished covering to keep water out.
- Trimmer
- A timber fixed across cut rafters to carry the load around a new opening in a pitched roof.
- Knee wall
- The short vertical wall in a chalet bungalow's upper room, where the sloping ceiling meets the floor area.
- Flashing
- The shaped collar that joins a roof window to the tiles or slates around it and sheds rain away from the frame.
- Hipped roof
- A roof that slopes on all four sides, typical of interwar and post-war bungalows.
- Highway licence
- Permission from the council to put scaffold, a tower or a skip on a pavement or road.
faq
questions Christchurch owners ask us
Is my house in the Christchurch town centre conservation area?
Search your full address on the conservation area map BCP Council publishes, since a boundary can split a street. We also check it before we quote and put the answer in writing.
My chalet bungalow in Burton has a small gable window upstairs. Can a roof window be the escape window?
Yes, if it is large enough and set at the right height. Upstairs in a chalet bungalow the storey sits low enough for a roof window to count as an escape window. We measure the opening and the sill height on the survey before recommending a size.
Should I choose a sun tunnel or a roof window for a Somerford bungalow hallway?
It depends on the depth of the loft over the hall and which slope is available. A short run with a clear path suits a sun tunnel; a wider hall that needs more light, or air, suits a roof window and a boarded shaft.
Do you fit rooflights on the narrow streets near the Priory?
Yes. Where scaffold has to stand on the road or pavement we arrange a licence with BCP Council first and plan deliveries around the parking restrictions.