If you are thinking of adding or replacing a porch or canopy, it needs to blend in with details such as joinery, tiling and glazing. During late-Victorian times, porches tended to be recessed into the house, with the door set back slightly and the open porch adorned to dado height with patterned tiles.

Edwardian porches were more elaborate, involving fretwork and turned-wood uprights. The roof or canopy were tiled or leaded, and the console brackets (uprights attached to the wall that support the porch roof) would be in carved and painted timber.

Reinstating a porch is relatively straightforward if neighbouring porches are still intact, because your joiner will have an original to copy. Adding a porch to a house that didn't have one originally is rarely successful, but if you are determined to have one, choose a design that blends in and contains some elements repeated from the style of the front door and other external joinery.

Porch kits are available from Richard Burbidge, and range from a simple canopy design to a more substantial apex shape with side supports.

Planning permission may be required if a proposed porch covers a ground area (externally) of more than three square metres, is more than three metres above ground level and is less than two metres away from the boundary of the house if it faces on to a highway.

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