Skylights & rooflights in Lewes

Front face, back roof

A Georgian frontage in Lewes can hide a much older range behind it, or a later rear wing with its own roof at a different pitch. That matters because a rooflight on the rear slope, out of sight of the street, is often the simpler planning conversation in a conservation area, and a rear wing may have a shallower pitch that suits a different product. We look at every roof slope on the house before suggesting where the glass should go.

Inside, the loft of an old Lewes house can hold surprises that change the plan: a purlin running exactly where the opening was meant to go, an old repair in a softer timber, or a ceiling that follows the rafters so there is no loft void at all. None of that is a reason not to fit a rooflight. It is the reason the survey happens in the room and the roof space before any figure is written down.

In Brighton and Hove one council handles both planning and Building Control. Lewes splits the two. The Ouse cuts through the Downs at Lewes, and the park boundary takes in the whole of the old town, so the Authority that looks after the Downs also decides whether a new opening can go in a roof on School Hill or Keere Street. Structure and energy checks are a different desk: Lewes District Council's own Building Control team. So a single rooflight on a Lewes house can involve two separate bodies, and it helps to know which one is asking which question.

Who looks at a rooflight in central Lewes

Question	Body	What they look at
Is consent needed?	South Downs National Park Authority	Planning, Article 4, conservation area character
Is the work safe and efficient?	Lewes District Council Building Control	Structure, weathering, fire, Part L energy
Is the house listed?	South Downs National Park Authority	Listed building consent, separate from planning
Scaffold on the pavement?	East Sussex County Council	Highway licence for the footway or road

The two Lewes conservation areas

Central Lewes has two conservation areas. The Lewes conservation area was designated in June 1970 and takes in the historic centre. Lewes (Malling Deanery) followed in November 1974, a little over half a kilometre from the centre. Being inside either one does not, on its own, take away the permitted development rights a house normally has for rooflights. What does remove them is an Article 4 direction, or alternatively a condition on an earlier planning permission.

That is where Lewes needs a careful check. The town is covered by an Article 4 direction that now sits with the National Park Authority. It was first made in 1995 and confirmed in 1996, before the Authority existed, and the Authority has had it under review since 2023. Lewes District Council's own Article 4 page lists directions for Chailey, Ditchling and Newhaven, not for Lewes itself, which is easy to misread as a clean bill. It is not: the direction that matters for a Lewes roof sits with the Park Authority. Before anyone orders a unit for a front slope in the centre, the right step is to ask the South Downs National Park Authority whether the direction covers your house and your roof, and to get that answer in writing.

The permitted development conditions themselves, and the cases where a flat or a listed building changes the picture, are set out in our planning guide for rooflights. The rules are national. What Lewes changes is the name on the decision letter.

Listed houses

A timber-framed hall house or an early Georgian front in Lewes may well be listed. If yours is, listed building consent is a separate application from planning, needed for any alteration that affects the character of the building, and a new opening in an old roof almost always does. We raise this at the survey so it is in the plan from day one, not discovered after the order is placed.

Who licenses a scaffold on a Lewes street

If poles have to stand on a Lewes footway or in the carriageway, the permission is East Sussex County Council's to give, as highway authority. Neither the district council nor the Park Authority issues it. A suspended parking bay for unloading follows the same route, and we make those applications where the job needs them. The timing and the paperwork are set out in the guide to licences for scaffolds and bay suspensions.

All of this goes into the written access plan that comes with a Lewes quote. For a house on a twitten that page usually says exactly how the scaffold gets in, which neighbours have been told and when, who holds the county licence if one is needed, and which of the two authorities has been asked what. It gives you something specific to show the neighbours on a shared path before the first tube arrives.

The right rooflight in Lewes depends on three things: the age of the roof, which slope it goes on, and what the planning answer from the Park Authority turns out to be. In the old centre that usually points one way, and on later rear extensions it can point quite another.

Old pitched roofs in the conservation areas

On a visible slope in either Lewes conservation area, a conservation rooflight is normally the starting point. It sits low in the roof plane, has slim glazing bars that echo a traditional cast iron rooflight, and reads as part of the roof rather than an addition to it. A heritage look does not excuse it from Part L: set into a sloping roof it is judged as a roof window, with a target of 1.4 W/m²K or band B on the Window Energy Rating scale.

For a rear slope where planning allows a standard unit, a roof window gives more sizes and opening types. The rafter spacing problem described above applies either way: an irregular old frame often decides the width before the catalogue does.

Later additions at the back

Some of the old Lewes houses were extended at the rear long after they were built, often with a low-pitched or flat roof. Those additions suit a flat roof rooflight or, for a taller space, a roof lantern. These are rooflights rather than roof windows under Part L, so the figure they must meet is 2.2 W/m²K. A flat roof extension on a listed Lewes house is still part of the listed building, so the same consent question applies to the extension as to the main roof.

Where a room has no roof slope above it at all, such as a ground floor hallway under a first floor bedroom in a tight Georgian plan, a sun tunnel can carry daylight down through the roof space without a large opening in an old frame. The only part visible from outside is a small dome, which can be placed on a rear slope.

A swap in the same opening is still building work

A new unit in the old hole, same size and same place, is still treated as building work when the whole frame comes out. On a Lewes house the notice goes to the District Council's Building Control team, or to a registered building control approver if you prefer a private one, and the replacement must meet Part L. A pane swapped in a frame that is still sound falls outside that. The detail is in our Building Regulations guide.

1. Inspect the opening Check the trimmers, the rafters either side and the ceiling below for any sign that water has been getting in around the old unit.
2. Check the planning position A swap in the same opening with a similar unit rarely raises planning, but a larger unit or a different style on a front slope goes back to the Park Authority.
3. Match the flashing to the roof covering An old roof in the centre may be laid in materials and courses that a modern flashing kit has to be adapted to.
4. Notify Building Control Lewes District Council, or a registered building control approver, is told before the unit goes in.
5. Make good inside The plaster and lining around the new unit are finished back to match the room once it is fitted.

A replacement is also the moment to think about whether the old unit was in the right place. On a Lewes roof where the planning position has since become stricter, keeping the same opening is usually the easier route. Moving it or enlarging it starts the planning conversation again with the Park Authority.