Lamorbey House, the 18th-century manor that Rose Bruford College has used since 1950, stands in its own park with large ponds off Burnt Oak Lane at one end of this ward, and the Blackfen Road shops hold the other. In between, Days Lane and Westwood Lane are lined with bay-fronted interwar houses. London Carpet Cleaning has cleaned across Blackfen and Lamorbey, DA15, since 2009, from £36 a room, dry within 6 to 7 hours.
Between Lamorbey Park and Blackfen Road
This ward is a 1930s suburb, and it shows. After the Danson estate was sold in 1922, builders filled the fields between Sidcup and Blackfen with road after road of bay-fronted houses, most of them with three bedrooms and gardens front and back. Days Lane, Westwood Lane, Lewis Road and Wellington Avenue are typical: solid interwar houses, many still in the same families for decades. New Ideal Homesteads built its Marlborough Park Estate here, and its sales brochure showed a cinema at the north end of The Oval; the final ten shops went up there instead.
The older layer is Lamorbey Park. Lamorbey House is a Grade II listed 18th-century manor, and its park is on the national register of historic parks and gardens, also at Grade II. The Malcolm family, who once owned the house, built the chapel that became Holy Trinity Lamorbey and the yellow-brick house on Burnt Oak Lane that was once a schoolroom. There is no railway station in Blackfen itself. Sidcup station, which opened in 1866 in what was then the parish of Lamorbey, sits at the southern edge, and most residents in the north of the ward reach Sidcup or Welling by bus along Blackfen Road. For shopping there is the Blackfen Road parade and the Co-op off Westwood Lane by the A2 flyover.
Lamorbey’s census figures
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Terraced houses | 32.7% |
| Detached houses | 11.4% |
| Two bedrooms | 19.8% |
| Four bedrooms or more | 29.7% |
| Rented privately | 11.3% |
| Without central heating | 1.4% |
The ONS names this neighbourhood Lamorbey, and it sits inside Blackfen and Lamorbey ward, so for once the figures and the page line up. Nine homes in ten are houses. Semis lead, but terraces are a third of the stock (32.7%), and 11.4% are detached, which gives more variety street to street than the long semi rows suggest. Flats are scarce at 9.6%; a two-bedroom flat and its living room is £115 on our list.
The bedroom figures follow the building work. Almost three homes in ten (29.7%) have four bedrooms or more, and with so many of these houses extended and loft-converted, a big upstairs is a common booking. That matters for us twice over. A bigger upstairs means more rooms and often a second staircase, and building work leaves plaster dust in every carpet in the house. Private renting is 11.3%, so tenancy cleans are a regular but small part of the work, and only 1.4% of homes lack central heating.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Bexley 022) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Tired wool and builders’ dust
Two jobs come up again and again here. The first is older carpet in long-held family homes, often a wool or wool-mix that has been down for years and looks tired more than dirty: the upstairs landing and three bedrooms where people assume the carpet is finished, until a proper hot-water extraction brings the colour back. The second is building dust. Once the trade has finished on an extension or a loft, the stair carpet is grey with plaster and brick dust, which we clear in a single visit.
Sofas dulled by everyday family use are common too, and so are the muddy traffic lanes that walks round Lamorbey Park and its ponds leave by the back door. An old coffee or tea ring that has sat in a wool carpet and oxidised can be lifted a long way but not always all the way, and we will tell you on the doorstep if a faint shadow is likely to stay.
Skips on the drive and the station zone
Most houses from Days Lane to Wellington Avenue have their own drive, so parking on the day is rarely a problem, and most of the residential streets sit outside Bexley’s controlled zones. Near Sidcup station it is different: Sidcup Station (zone B) runs Monday to Friday, 1pm to 3pm, so on those roads we book a morning slot or park on a visitor scratch card during the controlled two hours.
With so much building work, the usual obstacle is a skip or a builder’s van on the drive. If you have trades in, tell us when you book and we will plan where the van goes; and book the clean for after the last of the dust has been made, never before. Clear the landing and the stairs of boxes, and if the loft room is part of the job, make sure the loft stairs are free.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Blackfen and Lamorbey?
Prices are fixed, with no call-out fee, and they are the same across Bexley and every London borough we cover.
- Carpet cleaning, per bedroom, from £36
- Living room carpet from £43
- Through-lounge from £61
- Stairs, one flight, from £41
- Two-seater sofa from £57; armchair from £33
- Rug up to 3m² from £35
An extended house with four bedrooms and two flights is priced from the same list, item by item. Get a free quote, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
Hot-water cleaning and rug care at home
Most bookings are for hot-water carpet cleaning, the deep extraction method that suits the wool and wool-mix carpets common in these interwar houses. We also do sofa and upholstery cleaning in the home, fabric corner suites included, and rugs get the same hot-water treatment where they lie in the lounge, which is how we handle many of the candle-wax and spill jobs; see rug cleaning for the rug side of the work. Over the border in the rest of Bexley, or in nearby North Cray and Falconwood, the same team and the same prices apply.
Blackfen and Lamorbey bookings
Which postcodes and streets do you cover?
We cover all of DA15 on the Blackfen and Lamorbey side, from Blackfen Road and Days Lane across to Westwood Lane, Lewis Road, Brangbourne Road and the roads around Lamorbey Park. If you are near the Sidcup or Welling boundary and not sure which side you fall, send the postcode and we will confirm.
Where will the cleaner park on a Blackfen or Lamorbey street?
Almost every house here, from Days Lane to Wellington Avenue, has its own drive, so parking is rarely a problem. The exception is the zone around Sidcup station, which runs on weekday afternoons from 1pm to 3pm. If you are in a flat above the Blackfen Road shops or near the Co-op, let us know and we will sort the nearest practical spot when we arrive.
Can you get builders’ dust out of a stair carpet?
Yes, and it is one of our regular jobs here given how many of these houses have been extended or loft-converted. Fine plaster and brick dust works deep into stair pile, so we vacuum hard first, then hot-water extract the full flight, which lifts the grey and leaves the carpet properly clean.
How long do carpets take to dry in a Blackfen interwar semi?
Most carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours because we extract the bulk of the moisture back out as we go. Heavier wool, common in these long-held family houses, and a closed-up room take a little longer, so we open things up and leave air moving. Mattresses and very dense upholstery can need most of the day, and we will say so first.
Can you get candle wax out of a carpet or rug?
Usually, yes. We chip off what has set, draw the rest out of the pile with gentle heat and an absorbent cloth, then clean the area with hot-water extraction. Plain wax comes out completely. Coloured wax can leave a faint tint of dye in a pale carpet, which we treat separately; a wax-marked rug gets the same pre-treatment in your home before it is shampooed and rinsed.
We found moth damage under the sofa. Will cleaning help?
Cleaning helps with the cause. Moth larvae feed on wool in the dark, undisturbed parts of a room, under sofas and beds and along skirting boards, and they like the soil and hair in an unwashed pile. Hot-water extraction removes the eggs and larvae along with the dirt they live on. It cannot replace tufts that have been eaten, and for an active infestation you will also want a pest controller.
Every job is backed by our re-clean guarantee: if a cleaned area is not right, we come back and put it right at no charge. We are fully insured and DBS-checked, and we have cleaned carpets and sofas across Blackfen, Lamorbey and the wider Bexley area since 2009.
