The 102 flats of Odhams Walk step down around open stairs and courtyards on the site of the old Odhams print works, a few minutes from the Covent Garden piazza. London Carpet Cleaning has cleaned carpets, sofas and rugs across WC2 since 2009, from £36 a room, and they are dry within 6 to 7 hours. Prices are fixed, with no call-out fee, whether you are in a warehouse conversion off Floral Street or a patio flat off Long Acre.
Market hall, warehouses and a stepped estate
Inigo Jones laid out the piazza in the 1630s, and the covered market hall in the middle dates from 1830. The wholesale fruit and vegetable market moved out to Nine Elms in 1974, the hall reopened as shops in 1980, and the streets around it slowly filled with residents again. Westminster made Covent Garden a conservation area in 1971 and has extended it four times since, most recently in 2007.
The housing splits several ways. South of the piazza, buildings stand on long, thin medieval plots divided by old alleys. To the north the council notes larger Victorian warehouses and commercial buildings, and those are the conversions along Floral Street and Long Acre, with high ceilings, timber floors and big rugs doing the job of fitted carpet. Off Bedfordbury stand the Peabody buildings, on land the Peabody trustees bought in 1880, with homes for 720 people finished by 1881.
Then there is Odhams Walk, between Long Acre, Endell Street and Shelton Street. The Greater London Council built it between 1974 and 1981 to designs by Donald Ball: 73 L-shaped patio flats cascading round eight open stairs over the first two storeys, and a lift-served upper walkway leading to 29 more, all above a podium of shops and parking. Shelton Street is the borough line, with Camden to the north, so the Seven Dials streets beyond it are in a different borough from the piazza.
Homes on the Westminster side of Covent Garden
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Rented from the council or a housing association | 23.9% |
| Rented from the council | 6.0% |
| Three-bedroom homes | 13.7% |
| Homes with four or more bedrooms | 6.2% |
| Built before 1919 | 52.5% |
| Built in 2000 or later | 23.0% |
The piazza falls in the census area the ONS calls Strand, St James and Mayfair (Westminster 018). The Camden streets north of Shelton Street are counted in Camden’s own areas, so these figures describe the Westminster half: the market streets, the Strand side and the estates.
Social housing is a big part of it. Almost a quarter of homes (23.9%) are rented from the council or a housing association, which here means estates such as the Peabody buildings; only 6.0% rent from the council itself. These are often family flats, and the census shows it: 13.7% of homes have three bedrooms and 6.2% have four or more, more than you would guess from the shopfronts. A three-bed family flat with its living room comes to £151.
The buildings span three centuries. Just over half (52.5%) went up before 1919, the warehouses and walk-ups where wool runs on the stairs, while 23.0% were built from 2000 on, smart flats with lifts and pale carpet. For a one-bed flat over a Neal Street shop, the bedroom and the living room come to £79.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Westminster 018) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Dinner parties and builders’ dust
The bookings follow the social calendar. After a dinner party we are lifting red wine and trodden-in food out of wool carpets, and the week the builders leave a refurbished flat we are pulling fine plaster dust out of hallway rugs and stair runners, where it gets walked deep into the pile. Upholstery is a big share of the diary because the flats are compact and the furniture is good: velvet sofas that take on make-up and hand oils, leather that dulls where the same person sits every evening. Lined curtains grey along their bottom edge from the glass, and those we clean on site, where they hang.
Cleaning removes soiling; it cannot replace worn pile. On the stairs of these walk-ups the pile on the nosings has often been trodden flat over decades, and that shading stays visible after the dirt itself has gone. We point it out before we start.
No escalators, no drives
Access sets the tone here. Covent Garden station on the Piccadilly line has no escalators, only lifts and a 193-step spiral stair, and the flats over the shops on Neal Street or facing the Royal Opera House on Bow Street are the same story in miniature: narrow stairs, no lift, kit carried up by hand. Nobody here has a driveway.
Parking is Westminster’s zone G, which covers Soho, the West End and Covent Garden. Paid bays and single yellow lines are controlled from 8.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Saturday, and resident bays are for permit holders at all hours. We unload at your door before 11am, when Westminster allows loading on a yellow line for as long as needed, then pay for a bay. The piazza itself is pedestrian, so for addresses on it we stop at the nearest open street and wheel the kit in. In Odhams Walk, the lower patio flats are reached up open stairs and the upper walkway by lift, so tell us which you are.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Covent Garden?
We fix the price before the visit, there is no call-out fee, and the rates are the same here as across Westminster and every London borough.
- Carpet cleaning: from £36 per bedroom
- Living room carpet: from £43
- Through-lounge: from £61
- Stairs, one flight: from £41
- Two-seater sofa: from £57
- Rug up to 3m²: from £35
Get a free quote for your flat, or call 020 8077 8090.
Wool carpet, velvet and the 2m rug
Most carpet work here is hot water extraction, which suits wool and lifts party spills without over-wetting the pile. Our sofa and upholstery cleaning covers velvet, linen and leather, all three common in these flats, and our rug cleaning service cleans the rug on site, so there is no need to find room in a one-bedroom conversion to lay a large rug flat. We also clean St Giles to the north and Aldwych to the south, and cover the rest of Westminster on the same terms.
Things Covent Garden residents ask us
Do you cover both the Camden and Westminster sides of Covent Garden?
Yes. The borough boundary runs along Shelton Street, Camden to the north and Westminster to the south, and it makes no difference to the price or the service. We take bookings across the whole WC2 patch, from the piazza up to Seven Dials.
Do I need to arrange parking for your van?
No. We plan arrivals around Westminster’s loading rules and pay for bays where they exist. It does help to know in advance if your building has a porter, a service entrance or a timed delivery window, and how many flights of stairs we are carrying machines up.
Will red wine come out of a wool carpet?
Usually, yes. Blot a fresh spill with a dry white cloth and leave it alone; scrubbing and supermarket sprays can set the stain for good. We treat wine with wool-safe products and remove most marks in full, though very old spills may only fade.
How long does carpet take to dry above a Covent Garden shop?
dry within 6 to 7 hours in most Covent Garden flats. The extraction machine recovers most of the moisture as it works, and flats above shops on Neal Street or Bow Street tend to be warm, which speeds things along. Open a window if you can and keep foot traffic light at first, especially on the stairs and landings.
Can you get the kit up to an Odhams Walk flat?
Yes. The 73 patio flats on the lower two storeys are reached by open stairs, so we carry the machine up and run the hose from the courtyard level. The 29 flats on the upper walkway have a lift, which makes them easy. Tell us your flat number and floor when you book, and whether a patio rug or the hall carpet needs doing too.
Do you clean larger family flats as well as studios?
Often. In this census area 13.7% of homes have three bedrooms and 6.2% have four or more, which is more family homes than the shopfronts suggest. A three-bed flat with its living room is £151, and a four-bed with a through-lounge is £205. We bring enough hose and time to do the whole flat in one visit.
Every clean in Covent Garden is backed by our re-clean guarantee: if a mark we treated resurfaces, we come back and treat it again at no charge. Our cleaners are fully insured and DBS-checked, and we have worked these streets since 2009.
