Heritage windows in Westhumble: houses of the 1930s and 1940s by Box Hill station
Westhumble sits on the west side of the Mole valley opposite Mickleham, with Box Hill & Westhumble station in the middle of the village. Unlike most villages near Dorking, it is largely a twentieth-century place.
How the village grew
The medieval centre was at the middle of Adlers Lane, and moved east to Westhumble Street after Camilla Lacey was built north of Chapel Lane in 1816. The novelist Fanny Burney had already built a house here in 1797 with her husband, the French general Alexandre d'Arblay. When the Camilla Lacey estate was sold in 1932, after the death of its owner Victor Freeman, much of the modern village was built over the next two decades. Most of the houses on Pilgrims Way date from before the Second World War, and Burney Road, Adlers Lane and Pilgrims Close were built in the late 1940s. Most homes are detached.
Planning
The ruined twelfth or thirteenth century chapel at the western end of the village belongs to the National Trust. For houses, Westhumble does not appear among Mole Valley's Article 4 areas, which are in Dorking, Brockham and Leatherhead. An ordinary house can usually replace its windows with ones of similar appearance without an application. Confirm your own address with Mole Valley's property lookup.
What usually fits
Houses of the 1930s were often built with metal casements, and late-1940s houses with plain timber casements. For the first, steel-look aluminium in black or dark grey gives back the slim frames and small panes. For the second, a uPVC flush casement copies the flat face of the original. Many owners mix the two: flush casements to the front, steel-look on the garden side where the light is.
A typical Westhumble job
Illustrative example of a typical job
Steel-look garden windows on a 1930s Westhumble house
Most of the houses on Pilgrims Way in Westhumble were built before the Second World War, after the Camilla Lacey estate was sold in 1932. Metal casements were common in houses of that decade, and owners who want that slim dark line on the garden side usually choose steel-look aluminium.
House
1930s detached, rear elevation, ground floor
Windows
One wide steel-look aluminium window about 1800 by 1200 mm with a pair of opening casements in the middle, and two single windows about 1200 by 1200 mm
Finish
Black, slim glazing bars in a small-pane grid
Access
Ground floor, no scaffold
Typically £7,550 to £13,500, supplied and fitted, including VAT.
Tell us the street and roughly how many windows. A surveyor from the installer will look at the house, check whether anything on it needs planning permission, and quote in writing.
