Charlton House, built between 1607 and 1612, is the finest Jacobean mansion left in London, and around it the old village is ringed by council estates of the 1920s and 1940s, bay-fronted terraces near The Valley and new flats down by the river. London Carpet Cleaning covers the whole of Charlton, SE7, with fixed prices from £36 a room and carpets dry within 6 to 7 hours.
An old village ringed by estates
Charlton sits on the slope between the Thames and the higher ground of Shooters Hill, in the north of the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The old village still has Charlton House at its centre, with Charlton Park, opened to the public in 1926, beside it and Maryon Park a short walk away. The village became a conservation area in 1971. Late-Victorian and Edwardian terraces fill the streets around Charlton Athletic’s ground, roads such as Floyd Road and Inigo Jones Road; the club moved to The Valley, an old sand pit, in 1919.
Much of the rest is council housing, and it came in waves. From 1920 the borough built the Charlton Guild Estate on the old Fair Field north of Charlton Park Road. After the war it built the Fairlawn and Cherry Gardens estate from 1947, while the London County Council put up the Thornhill and Springfield Grove estate on the slopes to the north. Later infill went into the old sand quarries, at Fletching Road and Joyce Page Close. In the period terraces the carpet is usually wool or a wool-mix on the stairs and in the bedrooms, with stripped or engineered boards downstairs.
Charlton Village in figures
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Semi-detached houses | 26.4% |
| Rented from the council or a housing association | 50.3% |
| Built before 1919 | 20.5% |
| Built 1919 to 1944 | 23.5% |
| Built 1945 to 1972 | 33.9% |
| Three-bedroom homes | 39.6% |
The census area round the village is a record of those building waves. In the VOA count 20.5% of homes predate 1919, 23.5% date from 1919 to 1944, and 33.9% from 1945 to 1972, with no single era owning the place. Half of all homes (50.3%) are rented from the council or a housing association, so many of our customers here are tenants keeping a home in good order or handing one back.
The houses are what shape the work. More than a quarter of homes (26.4%) are semi-detached, and 39.6% have three bedrooms. That points to the inter-war cottages and post-war family houses on the estates. For a three-bed estate semi with the through-lounge and the stairs, the bill comes to £210. The flats, 52.5% of homes, are mostly in purpose-built blocks.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Greenwich 012) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Pale grey carpet and inherited smells
In the terraces we do a lot of stair-and-landing work, and pale grey carpet is everywhere here, so every footprint and every dropped bit of dinner shows until it is properly lifted out. Take-over flats are a steady part of the week, where a new tenant inherits a bedroom carpet that still smells of the last household’s dog, and a full hot-water extraction with a deodoriser is what clears it. We get the festive mishaps too, candle wax pressed into a lounge carpet and red wine worked into a fabric sofa.
On an old stair carpet we can rinse the fibre clean and bring the colour back, but where the pile has been walked flat down the middle of each tread, cleaning will not stand the missing tuft back up, and we say so before we start.
New Charlton and the riverside
New Charlton is the low end of SE7 between Woolwich Road and the Thames, and we cover it just the same. It grew as industrial land after the railway arrived in 1849, with rope works among its trades, and it is now the Charlton Riverside regeneration, where the council’s plans aim for about 3,500 new homes. Part of it, around the northern end of Anchor and Hope Lane, became a conservation area in March 2018. That means a different job mix from the village: new-build apartments with pale short-pile carpet in the bedrooms, plenty of end-of-tenancy cleans, and lift-and-loading-bay access.
Parking on permit streets and match days
Royal Greenwich runs two zones here, Charlton (C) and Charlton Station (CS), both controlled Monday to Saturday from 9am to 6.30pm, so a daytime visit on those streets needs a voucher or a paid bay, which we arrange. Charlton Athletic home games also fill the roads near Floyd Road, so tell us if there is a fixture on your day.
Before we arrive, clear the hall and take shoes off the stairs. If the lounge has a heavy sideboard or a piano, leave it; we clean around anything too heavy to move safely.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Charlton?
Prices are set in advance with no call-out fee, and they are the same across Greenwich and every London borough we cover.
- 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; mattress from £35
Get a free quote, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
Carpet and upholstery cleaning across SE7
Carpets get our hot-water steam carpet cleaning, which rinses the grit and traffic marks out of the pile and leaves it dry within 6 to 7 hours. Sofas and armchairs go to the upholstery cleaning service, which handles fabric and leather and the wine and curry a family sofa gathers. A good rug, a Persian or a delicate flatweave that has taken a spill, starts with a photo sent to us, so we can tell you whether it can be cleaned safely in the home with rug cleaning. We also cover the rest of Greenwich, from Blackheath across to Woolwich and Eltham.
What Charlton residents ask
Do you cover all of Charlton, from The Village down to New Charlton?
Yes, the whole of SE7, from the old village around Charlton House, through the terraces on Floyd Road and Inigo Jones Road near The Valley and Charlton Church Lane, down to New Charlton and the riverside flats off Woolwich Road. Near the borders with Greenwich, Woolwich or Blackheath it is still us, and where you live never changes the price.
Is parking a problem for the van on match days?
Much of Charlton is controlled parking: the Charlton and Charlton Station zones both run Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6.30pm, and Charlton Athletic home games tie up the roads near Floyd Road. Tell us your street and whether there is a fixture when you book, and we plan our arrival and sort the parking at our end.
Can you get pet smells out of a carpet in a flat we have just moved into?
Usually, yes. A carpet that smells of a previous tenant’s pet needs the source flushed out, so we soak the affected area, extract it with hot water and treat it with an odour neutraliser that works on the salts left behind. A bad case may need a second pass, and we will be straight with you about what a clean can lift.
How long until we can walk on the carpet?
Most carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours, a little longer for a dense wool pile in a period house or on a cold, damp day off the river. We rinse and extract hard so very little water is left behind, then leave you with airflow advice. In most Charlton homes a morning clean is back to normal by the evening.
We are council tenants on one of the estates. Can we book you directly?
Yes. Half the homes in this part of Charlton are rented from the council or a housing association, and plenty of tenants book us themselves, for a single room after a spill or the whole home before moving out. The receipt is in your name and lists every room, which helps if you need to show your landlord the carpets were cleaned.
Our 1920s house has the original through-lounge. How long does a full clean take?
A three-bed house with a through-lounge and one flight of stairs usually takes a morning. We start in the bedrooms and finish on the stairs and in the lounge, moving light furniture as we go. The through-lounge is from £61, and because it runs front to back with windows at both ends, it dries quickly once we open them.
Every clean comes with our re-clean guarantee: if a spot you flagged comes back, we return and put it right. We are fully insured and DBS-checked, and we have cleaned carpets, sofas and rugs across Charlton and the rest of south-east London since 2009.
