Replacement windows in Leigh, near Tonbridge, for estate cottages and village houses

Leigh is three miles west of Tonbridge, but it is in Sevenoaks District, so Sevenoaks District Council deals with its planning. The village centres on a large green, with the thirteenth-century church of St Mary above it.

A Victorian estate village

Much of what you see was built for the owners of Hall Place. The Baily family employed George Devey from 1864. Samuel Morley bought the estate in 1870, had Devey rebuild Hall Place in a neo-Tudor style in 1871 to 1874, and gave the village a school, village hall, water, gas lighting and drains. After Devey died in 1886, Morley turned to Ernest George, who designed Forge Square in 1886 to 1887 and The Square in 1889.

The conservation area and its windows

Leigh's conservation area was designated in 1972 and extended in 1986 and 2006. Sevenoaks District Council's 2019 appraisal covers the High Street, the green, Powder Mill Lane and Garden Cottages. It lists local red brick in Flemish bond, tile-hanging on upper storeys, white weatherboarding and half-timbering in many patterns.

It also records an unusual range of windows: metal frames with leaded lights or metal bars in Forge Square and on The Cottage in the High Street, timber casements under flat or segmental arches, Georgian and early Victorian sashes, leaded lights in the Old English style and stone mullions on the neo-Tudor houses. The appraisal says plainly that plastic windows and doors detract from the area.

What that means for you

Some of Leigh's buildings are listed, so check the national list first. For a listed house, consent comes first and timber or metal windows are the starting point. See timber windows. For an unlisted house in the conservation area, uPVC is usually allowed without permission, but in Leigh we would match the original type closely: flush casements under arches, or steel-look aluminium where the house had metal windows. Houses outside the conservation area, towards the station, which opened as Leigh Halt in 1911, have a freer choice.

Background on the village: Leigh on Wikipedia.