Replacement windows in West Hoathly, a listed hilltop village

West Hoathly is an old hilltop village about three and a half miles south-west of East Grinstead, in Mid Sussex District. Its parish also covers Sharpthorne, Highbrook and Selsfield Common. The terraced churchyard of St Margaret's, mostly thirteenth century with a broach spire, looks out across the Weald.

A conservation area full of listed buildings

The old village has been a conservation area since 1972. It covers about 14.5 hectares and holds 22 listed buildings, one at Grade I and two at Grade II*. Opposite the church is the Priest House, a fifteenth-century open hall-house that still keeps original windows; the Sussex Archaeological Society has run it as a museum since 1935. The Manor House of 1627 is built of ashlar with stone-mullioned windows under a Horsham stone roof, and the Cat Inn is early sixteenth-century timber frame with tile and brick outside. Tickeridge, a fourteenth-century Wealden hall house, and Gravetye Manor, built in 1598 for an ironmaster, lie in the parish outside the village.

What this means for windows

This is the most protected place on this site. With so many listed buildings, the first question for any house in the village centre is whether it is on the list. If it is, Mid Sussex will expect listed building consent, and new windows will normally be timber made to the pattern of the old ones, or the old windows repaired with secondary glazing behind.

If the house is in the conservation area but not listed, it can usually change its windows without planning permission, provided the new ones look similar. In a street of sandstone and tile-hung cottages that means slim flush casements with the same bar pattern. A chunky white frame will look wrong here even where it is allowed.

Read more on Wikipedia.