An orangery is what the conservatory grew up into. Where a conservatory is a glass box bolted to the house, an orangery is a real room: masonry corners and piers matched to the house, full-height glazing between them, and a flat insulated roof perimeter framing a roof lantern that pours daylight into the middle of the plan. The Extension Company designs them across London, detailed to match the house they join, and in North London they are built by Pine Grove's own team.
Orangery, conservatory or extension: which do you actually want?
- Conservatory: mostly glass, cheapest to build, hardest to heat and cool. Right for some budgets; rarely right for a premium house.
- Orangery: solid structure with generous glazing and a lantern. Reads as part of the house, performs like a proper room, and suits period and high-value properties where a glass lean-to would look wrong.
- Glazed rear extension: fully solid roof with slim-framed sliding glazing. The most seamless option for open-plan kitchen living.
The honest test: if you want a garden-facing room that feels architectural and works year round, and your house deserves brick detailing rather than uPVC, the orangery is the answer. If you want the whole back of the house opened into one kitchen-living space, you likely want a glazed rear extension or a bigger programme from our luxury extensions range.
Planning treats all three the same way; the split comes at building regulations. A conservatory can be exempt while it stays behind its own external doors, but knock through to the kitchen and it is judged as an extension. An orangery is designed, inspected and certificated as an extension from day one, which is why it can open straight into the house. Our conservatory planning permission guide sets out the exemption's five conditions and when an orangery makes more sense. If you already have a conservatory and want a proper room in its place, see replacing a conservatory with an extension for the planning position, the building regulations and whether the old base can stay.
What an orangery costs in 2026
Realistic all-in build ranges for London, excluding VAT, professional fees and any kitchen fit-out:
| Scope | What it is | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
| Classic orangery | Brick piers, lantern roof, French or sliding doors, ~20 to 30m² | £60,000 to £95,000 |
| Large orangery | Wider spans, structural glazing between piers, ~30 to 45m² | £85,000 to £130,000 |
| Orangery within a bigger programme | Part of a wrap-around or whole-house scheme | Priced on design |
The swing factors are the glazing specification, the lantern size, and how far the detailing goes: stone cills, handmade brick and hardwood joinery all push toward the top of the band and all belong on the houses we build for. As everywhere on this site, the quote is fixed and itemised, and the signed figure is the paid figure. Our orangery cost guide breaks these bands down by size and per m², and shows what the roof, the glazing and the fees add.
Do you need planning permission for an orangery?
Often not. Planning has no separate category for orangeries: an orangery is a single-storey extension, and it is judged against the same householder permitted development rules as any other (General Permitted Development Order 2015, Schedule 2, Part 1, Class A). On a house that still has its permitted development rights, an orangery needs no planning application if it stays within these limits:
- Depth: no more than 3m beyond the rear wall of the original house on a terraced or semi-detached house, or 4m on a detached house.
- Deeper, through prior approval: up to 6m on a terrace or semi and 8m on a detached house under the larger home extension scheme. You notify the council (£249 from April 2026), the neighbours are consulted, and the council has 42 days to decide.
- Height: 4m at most, and no higher than the existing house at eaves or ridge.
- Eaves near a boundary: no more than 3m to the eaves where the orangery comes within 2m of a boundary.
- Position: nothing beyond the principal elevation, normally the front of the house, or beyond a side wall that faces a road.
- Plot coverage: together with other extensions and outbuildings, no more than half the land around the original house.
The limits are measured from the original house, as first built or as it stood on 1 July 1948, not from the house you bought, so a kitchen extension added by a previous owner may already have used some of the allowance.
Some houses have less to work with. Flats and maisonettes have no permitted development rights for extensions. In a conservation area, an orangery inside the 3m or 4m limit can still be permitted development, but the 6m or 8m prior approval route is not available, and an Article 4 direction can take the extension right away altogether. Listed houses need listed building consent, and estate covenants can add a further layer of approval on top of planning. Green belt designation does not remove permitted development, though anything larger is judged on whether it is proportionate to the original house. Much of our patch carries exactly these layers, so we map them at the first visit; our conservation area extensions guide shows how they change a design.
Inside the limits there is no planning application to make, but we still secure a Lawful Development Certificate (£274 for proposed works): the council's written confirmation that the orangery is lawful, and the document a buyer's solicitor asks for when you sell. Our lawful development certificate guide explains how it works, and every fee is in our planning fees guide. Building regulations apply whichever planning route you take.
Orangery roofs: lanterns, flat roofs and parapets
The roof is what makes an orangery an orangery. Around the edge runs a flat, insulated perimeter roof carried on the masonry corners and piers; in the middle sits a glazed roof lantern, lighting the part of the room that side windows cannot reach. The solid perimeter holds heat and gives the room a proper ceiling for lighting and extraction while the lantern still floods it with light, which is why an orangery stays close to normal room comfort year round where a fully glazed conservatory roof would not.
From the garden, the edge of that flat roof decides whether the orangery reads as part of the house or as an add-on. Where the house suits it, a brick parapet capped with copings that line through with the house hides the roof edge and gives the classic orangery profile, with the lantern rising cleanly behind it.
The lantern drives two decisions. Its size is one of the biggest swing factors in the price, and its height above the flat roof matters for planning, because the whole orangery has to stay within the 4m height limit to remain permitted development. And because the roof is mostly solid, the orangery is built to the building regulations as an extension, thermal performance included: we design the glazing-to-solid ratio so the room passes properly rather than on a technicality.
Brick-built orangeries: built like the house, not bolted to it
The difference between a fine brick-built orangery and a regrettable one is detail: brick coursing and mortar matched to the original, lantern flashings in lead done the traditional way, cills and copings that line through with the house, and doors hung so they still glide in a decade. That is build-quality territory, which is why our orangeries go through the same fixed-price, one-project-lead process as every extension we deliver.
Orangery kitchen extensions
Many orangery briefs turn out to be kitchen briefs: the lantern sits over an island or the dining table, the solid perimeter carries proper task lighting and extraction, and the piers frame sliding or French doors to the garden. It outperforms a glazed extension where the house is period — the masonry reads as original fabric rather than an addition. Budget the kitchen fit-out on top of the build figures above (typically £8,000 to £30,000 depending on spec), and pressure-test the whole number against our North London cost guide before you fall in love with a lantern. If you want the solid-roof version of the same room, that's our kitchen extensions practice.
How long does an orangery take?
Design to completion typically runs five to eight months: two to three weeks from survey to a submitted planning set, the council's eight-week decision period where a full application is needed (often it isn't — see the planning section above), then ten to fourteen weeks on site depending on span and finish. Permitted development schemes shortcut the middle stage entirely, which is why we confirm your route at the first visit.
Orangeries suit generous plots: Hadley Wood, Totteridge, Radlett and Hampstead Garden Suburb are natural orangery country, and we design them for houses right across North London.