Heritage comes from authenticity
Roseview Windows is a leading name in heritage windows. Director, Mike Bygrave, explains how the heritage market depends on authenticity, both in its products and the companies providing them.
The once-niche heritage window market is now a well-established sector. It continues to grow at a healthy rate, with demand increasing and ever more fabricators and installers seeing the benefits and profits to be had from offering traditional window styles
In demand
At the heart of this demand is the UK’s aging housing stock. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) 2022 housing survey almost 40% of the 15.5 million owner occupied homes in England were built before 1945.
That’s around six million properties. Of those, 3.5 million were built before 1919. For comparison, in the last 20 years fewer than two million new homes have been built.
Clearly, old housing stock demands heritage windows. But it also impacts modern building. Put simply, heritage is popular, and so modern buildings and designs draw from it. We often see windows that were previously replaced in the 1970s and 80s now being replaced again, this time with more heritage-based designs. The demand is there.
Roseview has been involved in heritage windows since 1985, when The Peabody Trust – a London housing association – wanted a conservation-friendly way of upgrading thousands of end-of-life timber sash windows.
They didn’t want to replace them with mock-sash casements that merely approximated the looks of the original windows, but they also didn’t want the expense and ongoing maintenance of new timber windows.
The Trust approached Rehau, and together they designed the first commercially viable PVC-U sash window. Rehau then came to existing fabricator, Roseview, to build them.
From the start Roseview understood why this window was needed. Not because there was a market opportunity – at the time, frankly, that market didn’t exist – but because of the importance of preserving a fast-disappearing traditional window style that’s a fundamental part of British architectural heritage.
Pushing the boundaries
Since then Roseview has constantly pushed the boundaries of authenticity, because we believe that heritage isn’t just popular, it’s important.
For almost 40 years that belief has driven us to continually search for ways that we can design and build modern sash windows that have all the visual authenticity of timber originals, coupled with the benefits of modern windows.
This means designing windows and features that focus on authenticity, not profit or simplicity. There are many features of sash windows that are easy to produce – chunky profiles, visible caps and joins, and fake joints to name but a few.
These features are fine on heritage-style windows, but they’re not truly authentic. Matching the slender, seamless, well-proportioned lines of a Georgian or Victorian hardwood sash window in PVC-U takes experience, investment, and effort. It’s difficult to do and takes more time and money to achieve.
Heritage authenticity
In pure business terms, it makes more sense to simply approximate heritage style rather than replicate it. But when everything you do focuses on true authenticity, simply approximating heritage isn’t good enough.
The good news is that customers know the difference.
When Roseview started, simply having the first PVC-U sash window was a big step. Today we’ve moved on, and features such as ultra slim meeting rails, seamless window construction, traditional curved sash horn designs and smooth balance chamber covers take things to the next level.
Only companies that are truly vested in heritage authenticity put the time and effort into doing the difficult tasks to reach this level. That then raises the bar for what is expected from true heritage windows.
It needs that spark of creativity and authenticity to get the ball rolling, but once done everyone can benefit from the thriving heritage market.