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Aluminium Bifold Doors
Designed to complement any style of property our range of bespoke aluminium bi-folding doors will completely transform the look of your home.
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Glass Extensions in Cumbria and the Lake District
Glass box extensions, glazed links and full-height glazing for Cumbrian homes — designed around the view, and specified for the weather. We have completed a glass box in Cumbria, and we understand both the National Park planning process and the council reorganisation that most suppliers' websites still have wrong.
Two Things Most Suppliers Get Wrong About Cumbria
The first is the council. In April 2023 Cumbria County Council and its six districts were abolished and replaced by two unitary authorities: Cumberland, covering Carlisle, Allerdale and Copeland, and Westmorland and Furness, covering Barrow, Eden and the former South Lakeland. If a glazing company's website still tells you to apply to South Lakeland District Council, it has not worked here since before the reorganisation.
The second is the National Park. Inside the Lake District National Park boundary, the National Park Authority is the planning authority — not your council. Its policies on visual impact, materials and the character of the landscape are considerably more restrictive, and it is the reason a design that would be routine in Kendal may not be in Ambleside. Part of eastern Cumbria also falls under the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, following the 2016 boundary extension.
Get those two things right at the start and the process is manageable. Get them wrong and you lose months.
Why Cumbrian clients work with us
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Completed glass box extension in Cumbria
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Familiar with Lake District National Park Authority requirements
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We work to the current Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness structure
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Experienced with stone farmhouses, bank barns and listed rural buildings
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High thermal specification for exposed upland sites
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Over 45 years designing and fitting bespoke structural glazing
What We Design and Install
Every project is made to measure. These are the systems best suited to Cumbrian properties:
Our glazing systems
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Panoramic Sliding Doors
The minimal frame utilised in this range has a mere 20mm interlock between sashes, allowing virtually uncluttered views from within the property.
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Cortizo Sliding Doors - Cor Vison -
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Glass Box Extensions
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Internal Steel Screens
Steel screens & doors can create a contemporary or authentic historic style. Your steel windows can be as bespoke as your property.
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Aluminium Windows
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Our Work in Cumbria and Comparable Country
We completed a bespoke glass box extension in Cumbria. Beyond that, the work most relevant to this county is our rural portfolio: glass links joining farmhouses to outbuildings across Lancashire, a glazed link between two buildings in the Yorkshire Dales, full glazing packages on working farmhouses, and glass room extensions in the Peak District. Stone buildings, upland weather, National Park and National Landscape constraints — the same problems in a different postcode.
Cumbrian building stock is unusually consistent and unusually demanding. Stone farmhouses, bank barns, slate roofs and thick rubble walls with openings that are rarely square and never plumb. Glazing into that fabric is a measurement problem before it is a design problem, which is why we survey every opening ourselves.
Recent projects
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Steel Look Alike Doors
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📍 Merseyside
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Project Overview — Custom Cortizo Doors & Balustrade, Lancashire
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📍 Lancashire
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Lower Hud Farm
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📍 Lancashire
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Glass Link & Office
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📍 Lancashire
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Glulam Frame Glass Box Extension
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📍 Derbyshire
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Glass Link
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📍 Popes Farm
Areas We Cover Across Cumbria
We work throughout the county, including:
- Kendal, Windermere, Bowness, Ambleside and Grasmere
- Keswick, Cockermouth, Coniston and Hawkshead
- Penrith, Appleby, Kirkby Lonsdale and the Eden Valley
- Carlisle, Wigton and the north of the county
- Barrow, Ulverston, Grange-over-Sands and the Furness peninsula
National Park Planning and Listed Stone Buildings
Inside the Lake District National Park, the National Park Authority determines applications and applies policies designed to protect the landscape character of a World Heritage Site. Traditional materials, restrained visual impact and respect for the vernacular carry real weight. Permitted development rights are more limited than outside the park, and it is safest to assume you will need full permission.
That does not rule out contemporary glazing. Where it succeeds is when it is clearly modern, clearly subordinate to the original stone building, and reversible — the same logic that works in conservation areas. A glazed link between a farmhouse and a bank barn, for instance, joins two structures while making it obvious that they were always separate, and can be removed without damaging either.
Outside the park, Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness apply their own local policies, and the Arnside and Silverdale National Landscape covers part of the south of the county. Many rural properties are listed or sit within a listed curtilage.
The other Cumbrian factor is weather. Exposed upland sites see driving rain and real wind loading, and thermal performance matters more here than on a sheltered suburban plot. We specify accordingly rather than to a standard sheet.
What Affects the Cost?
Every project is priced individually, but the things that move the number most are consistent:
- Pane size. Cost per square metre rises sharply once panels exceed what two people can lift, because you are then into crane hire.
- Thermal and structural specification. An exposed Lakeland site needs a higher specification for wind loading and heat loss than a sheltered plot. This is not a place to buy the cheapest unit.
- Working into stone. Rubble walls and settled openings mean forming and making good the opening is frequently a bigger job than the glazing itself.
- Planning route. A National Park application takes longer and usually needs more design work than a straightforward suburban application.
- Access and distance. We are around sixty miles out, and narrow lanes and soft ground on a fellside site can complicate a crane lift considerably.
Send us your drawings, or even a photo of the building, and we will give you a realistic budget range before you spend anything.
Glass Extensions in Cumbria — Common Questions
The Lake District National Park Authority is the planning authority for everything inside the park boundary, not your local council. Its policies on visual impact, materials and landscape character are more restrictive, so a design needs to be shaped around them from the start. Outside the park, applications go to Cumberland or Westmorland and Furness.
Start Your Cumbria Project
Whether it is a glazed link between a farmhouse and a bank barn near Kendal, a glass box framing a fell view, or full-height glazing into a barn conversion in the Eden Valley, we would like to see it. Call us on 0151 523 3131, or send over your plans and we will come back with honest advice and a realistic budget.