Billingshurst, Five Oaks, Adversane, Wisborough Green, Kirdford, Coolham and Codmore Hill
Sash, flush casement and aluminium windows for a village with a timber-framed medieval street, Victorian houses round the 1859 station and estates from every decade since the 1940s.
The window that looks right on Billingshurst High Street would look odd on a 1970s house off Forge Way, and the reverse is true too. Start with the age of your house.
Before 1800
The centre along Stane Street has been a conservation area since 1973. Horsham District Council's 2018 appraisal found small-paned casements on most of its older buildings and sashes on the larger houses.
Windows in the old village
1859 to 1914
Once the station opened in 1859, brick villas and cottages went up along Station Road, West Street, East Street and Newbridge Road. Many still carry sashes, and some have canted bays.
Sash windows
1930s to now
Daux Avenue bungalows from the 1930s, Coombe Hill in the 1940s, Silver Lane in the 1960s, Forge Way in the 1970s, Roman Way in the 1990s, Penfold Grange after the 1999 bypass and Amblehurst Green to the east.
Windows by periodFour types cover almost every house in the parish. Each page explains where it suits and what to choose.
Forty minutes at your house, at a time you choose from the diary, and a written quotation to keep.
What to know first
Check that before you choose anything. Billingshurst parish has two conservation areas, the village centre and the hamlet of Adversane, and the parish plan counts more than 80 timber-framed buildings. Outside them, and on an unlisted house, replacements in keeping with the existing windows are generally permitted development.
Inside the Billingshurst conservation area, the council's appraisal asks owners to repair historic windows where they can and, if replacement cannot be avoided, to copy the original pattern or follow a design from the building's own period. It also notes that uPVC windows have crept in.
Depending on the building (listed, conservation area, Article 4), there can be rules on the glass you're allowed and on the exact glazing-bar layout. Check with the council; Billingshurst Windows can help with that process.
The old village and listed homesBillingshurst, Five Oaks, Adversane, Coolham and Codmore Hill come under Horsham District Council.
Wisborough Green and Kirdford come under Chichester District Council; Kirdford's northern and western edges reach into the National Park.
Sources: Billingshurst Conservation Area Appraisal, 2018; Billingshurst Neighbourhood Plan 2019 to 2031.
Stane Street, the Roman road from London to Chichester, still carries the A29 through the village, with Five Oaks to the north and Adversane and Codmore Hill to the south. The A272 runs across it, west to Wisborough Green and east to Coolham, and Kirdford sits in the lanes beyond Wisborough Green.
All the villagesSix Billingshurst houses are priced in full, starting with a 1930s chalet bungalow and ending with a Georgian front that needs timber sashes.
Prices are made to measure. They depend on the sizes, the number and position of the windows, access, and the materials, colours and hardware you choose, so book a free home visit for an exact price.
Window prices in BillingshurstBrick, tile and stone
The parish design statement describes a village built mostly of local red and multi-stock brick, hung with handmade clay tiles above the ground floor, and Horsham stone slabs on some of the oldest roofs. On East Street the bays sit under small pitched gables with painted bargeboards. Station Road has projecting front gables, and West Street sets off its red brick with contrasting brick round the openings. Even the 1990s houses on Roman Way and the Penfold Grange estate borrow the tile hanging and gables of the High Street.
Window colour is read against all of that. The statement asks for windows, doors and rainwater goods in white or a warm natural colour, chosen to blend with the wall behind or to stand out from it. White and cream frames sit easily against red brick and orange tile. Anthracite and black are popular on newer houses, but on a tile-hung Victorian front they can look heavy, so hold a sample against your own wall before deciding.
Glazing bars matter as much as colour. Georgian houses in the old village had small panes, the station-era villas mostly two-over-two or one-over-one sashes, and the post-war estates plain casements with no bars at all. Copying the house's own pattern is the cheapest way to make new windows look as if they belong.
For most houses in the village, no. If the house is not listed and sits outside the two conservation areas, windows of a similar look to the existing ones count as permitted development. Listed houses are different: Horsham District Council must grant consent before any of their windows change. In the Billingshurst village centre and Adversane conservation areas, the council's appraisals ask owners to repair historic windows or copy them, so it is worth asking the council before ordering.
About 40 minutes. Each window is looked at in turn, you see frame and colour samples, and a written quotation follows. Monday to Friday, the first slot is at 8am and the last visit wraps up by 4pm.
Usually, yes. A uPVC sash with run-through horns, a deep bottom rail and the same bar pattern as the original reads well from the pavement. Where the house is listed, the council will normally want timber instead.
A FENSA-registered window and door company handles the installation. Registration lets the company sign off its own work under the building regulations, and the FENSA certificate is posted to you once the job is logged. File it with your house papers, since it is one of the documents asked for when a Billingshurst house is sold.
They come out on the fitting day and leave with the fitters. Every opening has its new window in before the fitters leave that evening, and nothing is boarded up.
Visits run on weekdays from 8am, and the last one finishes by 4pm.