Bladindon Drive still carries the name of the Bladindon family who once held this land, and the three-bedroom semis along it and its neighbours stand on what were the grounds of Blendon Hall. Many still have wool-rich carpet and the original stair run. London Carpet Cleaning has cleaned across Blendon and Penhill, DA15 and DA5, since 2009, from £36 a room, and carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours.
One ward in two halves, with a river along the bottom
Blendon and Penhill is a Bexley ward, not a single village. Blendon is the northern half, around Blendon Road and its small parade of shops; Penhill is the southern half, along Penhill Road down towards the Albany Park estate. Most of both went up in the 1930s, after the builder D.C. Bowyer bought the Blendon Hall estate in 1929. His houses were built between 1931 and 1936, the hall itself came down in 1934, and the Penhill Park Estate of three-bedroom semis filled the land around the old house and Blendon Wood. Postally the ward straddles DA15 and DA5, and we cover both halves the same way.
Green space runs through it. Penhill Park, between here and Blackfen, is a level rectangle of grass enclosed by the backs of houses, with a playground and a pavilion on its western side. The River Shuttle runs along the bottom of the ward, and the Shuttle Riverway footpath, five miles from its source near Avery Hill to the Cray just south of Hall Place, follows it from Penhill Road through the back streets into Bexley Woods. Albany Park station, on the Dartford Loop into Charing Cross and Cannon Street, is the stop most residents use.
Where do this page’s census figures come from?
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Semi-detached houses | 46.3% |
| Three bedrooms | 45.4% |
| Owned outright | 44.0% |
| Rented from the council or a housing association | 1.6% |
| Built 1919 to 1944 | 70.7% |
| Built 1973 to 1999 | 16.4% |
This page’s mapped point falls just over the ward line, in the neighbourhood the ONS calls Lamorbey, in Blackfen and Lamorbey ward. The census and VOA figures in the table come from there, and the housing is the same interwar stock as the ward next door. Seven homes in ten (70.7%) were built between 1919 and 1944, almost half (46.3%) are semis, and the three-bedroom house is the standard at 45.4%. That is the Penhill Park Estate pattern exactly: a bay-fronted semi, a hall with a straight stair and three bedrooms off a small landing.
Two figures stand out. Owning outright is high at 44.0%, and social renting is close to nil at 1.6%, so this is a settled, older, owner-occupied area where carpets are kept for years and cleaned with care. The other is the 1973 to 1999 share (16.4%), a later wave of building among the interwar roads. A three-bed semi with a through-lounge and the stairs is a typical job; three bedrooms, a through-lounge and one flight comes to £210 on our list.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Bexley 022) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Riverside mud and well-used front rooms
The Shuttle corridor is lovely to live beside and hard on hallway carpet, because path mud and park grass come back in on shoes and on dogs. Dog households where the lounge, hall and stairs take the brunt of it are a steady part of our work here. The other constant is the long-occupied semi: a front room or a staircase that has held grandchildren’s parties and Christmases for years, where hot-water extraction lifts trodden-in chocolate and the general grey out of the pile.
On an interwar stair run where the pile is worn down to the backing along the nosings, cleaning freshens the colour and removes the smell, but it cannot put back fibre that has gone, and those edges may still look tired. We point them out before we begin.
Quiet side roads and the Albany Park zone
These are semis with drives or kerb space outside, and most of the ward sits outside Bexley’s controlled parking zones. The one to know is at the southern end: Albany Park (zone J) runs Monday to Friday, 11am to noon, around the station. If you live inside it, a visitor scratch card covers the van for that hour, or we start after noon. Elsewhere we bring our own water and power, so as long as the van can pull up within hose reach of the front door, the machine does the rest.
Houses near the river path take much of their mud in through the back door, so we clean the route from the garden as carefully as the front hall. Before the visit, move small furniture off the carpet, lift anything stored on the stairs and put pets in the garden.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Blendon and Penhill?
Prices are fixed, there is no call-out fee, and both halves of the ward pay the same as Bexley and every London borough.
- Carpet per bedroom from £36
- Living room 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
We check the rooms on arrival, so the figure is confirmed before any work starts. Get a free quote, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
Cleaning services across the ward
Carpets are cleaned by hot-water steam extraction, which rinses the pile and pulls the dirt out into the machine, so no residue stays behind to re-soil. The same van handles sofas and leather suites, from a fabric three-piece to a conditioned leather suite, and rugs are cleaned in your home on the same visit; for a wool or delicate piece, send a photo first (see rug cleaning). For the rest of Bexley the cover is the same, and we also work the neighbouring streets of North Cray and Falconwood.
Booking a clean in Blendon and Penhill
Which Blendon and Penhill streets do you cover, across DA15 and DA5?
All of the Blendon and Penhill ward, across both DA15 and the DA5 stretch, from Penhill Road and Blendon Road through Beechway, Bladindon Drive and Hurst Road, and out to the streets bordering Penhill Park and the River Shuttle. On the Bexley side or nearer Sidcup, we still come to you with no extra charge.
Is parking a problem for the van at a Penhill Park Estate semi?
Rarely. Most homes have a driveway or kerb space outside, and only the streets by Albany Park station are in a controlled zone, for one hour on weekday mornings. We bring our own water and power, so we just need to pull up within reach of the front door.
Can you do an end-of-tenancy clean for a deposit?
Yes, and it comes up on the rented houses round here. We clean every carpet to the standard a landlord or agent expects for the inventory, and we check each room first so the quote matches the job. Get it done before the final check, while the place is empty.
How long do carpets take to dry in a house near the River Shuttle?
Most carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours, and a front room cleaned in the morning is usually dry by the evening. Heavy wool or a thick underlay takes a little longer, and that includes the wool-rich carpet in many of these semis. On a damp day near the river we open a window and leave airflow going to speed it along.
We are clearing a parent’s house for sale. Can you clean the carpets once it is empty?
Yes, and an empty house is the easiest time to do it. With the furniture gone we can clean every room wall to wall, including the strips that sat under wardrobes and sofas for decades. Book it after the clearance and before the photographs, and we can work from a key left with a neighbour or an agent.
Our house was built in the 1980s. Is the clean any different?
A little. The later houses among the 1930s roads often have a synthetic carpet on a foam or felt underlay, which takes a deeper hot rinse than the older wool and dries quickly, often inside the hour. The stairs and landing are the same job, and the price list is the same.
Every clean is backed by our re-clean guarantee: if a treated area is not right, we come back and put it right. We are fully insured and DBS-checked, and we have cleaned carpets across Bexley since 2009.
