Bespoke grey period entrance door with leaded and bevelled glazing, flanking sidelights and a numbered fanlight, set in a brick surround

WEST MIDLANDS

Bespoke Period Entrance Door with Leaded Glazing — West Midlands

(The Beaufort Project)

A period entrance specified as one assembly — door, leaded sidelights and fanlight composed together to give a West Midlands home the arrival it had lost.

Project Facts

Location: West Midlands
Property: Edwardian-Register Suburban Home
Scope: Entrance Structures, Bespoke Door Sets (entrance door, sidelights, fanlight)
Materials: Hardwood, leaded and bevelled glazing, polished chrome ironmongery
Year completed: 2023

Architectural Context

A substantial suburban home in the West Midlands, of Edwardian character, where the original entrance had long since been lost to a flat modern replacement. The doorway is the one piece of joinery a house presents to the street before anything else, and here it was working against the building — a plain slab where the proportions of the elevation called for an assembly with depth, light and detail.

The brief was focused but exacting: a single entrance, specified properly. A period entrance is rarely just a door. It is a composed opening — a door flanked by sidelights and crowned by a fanlight, the glazing carrying the decorative register that a brick Edwardian elevation expects. Getting it right is a matter of proportion above all: the width of the sidelights against the door, the depth of the fanlight, the weight of the glazing bars, and a leaded pattern that belongs to the period rather than approximating it.

There was an interior dimension too. An entrance assembly is read from both sides — from the street as a statement of the house, and from the hall as the source of light and the first thing seen on returning home. Both faces had to resolve. A flat replacement door fails on both counts at once: nothing to the street, and a dim hall behind it. The opportunity here was to give the house back the light and the presence its proportions were designed around, in a single well-made assembly rather than a series of compromises.

Studio Response

The entrance was specified as a single composed assembly rather than a door with extras added around it. The proportions were set first — the door width against the flanking sidelights, the fanlight sized to crown the opening without overpowering it — so the whole assembly sits correctly within the brick surround and reads as part of the elevation rather than an insertion into it.

The glazing did the period work. Leaded and bevelled glass was specified to a pattern drawn from the Edwardian register, carried consistently across the door lights, sidelights and fanlight so the decorative scheme reads as one design. Bevelled glass earns its place here: it catches and breaks the light, giving the entrance the movement and depth that flat glass cannot, while the leaded pattern ties the assembly to the age of the house. The hardwood was specified for stability and a long painted life, finished in a deep, quiet colour that lets the glazing carry the detail.

Ironmongery was treated as part of the composition rather than an afterthought — polished chrome furniture chosen to suit the period and proportioned to the door, the numbered fanlight detailed so the house identifies itself without a surface-fixed plaque. The hardwood was finished in a deep, quiet grey that lets the glazing carry the detail, and the sections were kept generous enough to hold the leaded lights properly rather than pared down to a modern slimness the period would not recognise. From the street the entrance now gives the house the arrival its elevation always implied; from the hall, the leaded glazing throws patterned light across the floor and the assembly reads as deliberately from inside as out. A single opening, but the one that sets how the whole house is read.

The same entrance assembly seen from the panelled hall, leaded sidelights and fanlight throwing patterned light across the floor — Read from both sides — patterned light across the hall, a statement to the street.

Element Breakdown

A single entrance, specified as one composed assembly rather than a door with extras added around it — proportion resolved first, then the period detail carried consistently across every light:

Entrance Structures
Door, sidelights and fanlight proportioned together — the door width set against the flanking sidelights and the fanlight sized to crown the opening — so the whole assembly sits correctly within the brick surround and reads as part of the elevation.
Bespoke Door Sets
Leaded and bevelled glazing to an Edwardian pattern, carried consistently across the door lights, sidelights and fanlight; the bevelled glass catches and breaks the light to give the entrance depth that flat glass cannot.
Heritage & Period Joinery
A period-register entrance in stable hardwood returning the arrival the elevation always implied — read as a statement from the street and as the source of patterned light from the hall, the sections kept generous enough to hold the leaded lights as the period intended rather than pared to a modern slimness.

Considering a project of your own?

Related Projects

WORCESTERSHIRE

Grade II Listed Farmhouse

Full Joinery Package

SHROPSHIRE

Bespoke Oak Doors & Casement Windows

Bespoke Door Sets & Windows

Featured Elements

Entrance Structures | Bespoke Door Sets