Half the homes in the Crofton end of this ward are semi-detached and half have three bedrooms, so the usual job here is a lounge, a hall, one flight up to a half-landing and the bedrooms above it. London Carpet Cleaning has worked Farnborough and Crofton, BR6, since 2009, from the Tubbenden roads down to the curving High Street of Farnborough village. Rooms start from £36, and carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours.
Interwar semis, with a coaching village at the southern end
Most of the ward went up between the wars and in the years just after. Crofton stayed rural until Orpington station opened in 1868, and by 1930 a firm called Hearsum Houses Ltd was printing brochures for its new “Hearsum Houses at Crofton near Orpington”. Streets like Crofton Avenue, Tandridge Drive and Andover Road are lined with the result: bay-fronted three-bed semis, fitted carpet running up a half-landing staircase, and a front garden long since paved into a drive.
Farnborough village is a different place. The railway never reached it, so the High Street still curves the way it did when it was a turnpike coaching road to Sevenoaks, and the cottages and former shops along it hide houses far older than the suburb around them. Bromley protects the old core as the Farnborough Village conservation area. Inside those cottages the rooms are small and the stairs tight, and the carpet is more often wool.
The oldest thing in the ward sits by Orpington station. Workmen preparing a drive for new council offices in 1926 turned up the first finds of Crofton Roman Villa, the centre of a farm of about 500 acres that was lived in from roughly AD 140 to 400. The Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit dug it fully in 1988, and today it is the only Roman villa on show to the public anywhere in Greater London. Crofton Road runs past it.
There is no station in Farnborough or Crofton as such. Orpington is the rail hub, with Southeastern trains to Charing Cross and Victoria, and the 358 and R4 buses carry people to it. Green space is close on every side: Farnborough Common to the north, Darrick and Newstead Woods close by (one of Bromley’s five local nature reserves), and High Elms out towards Downe.
The census figures for Tubbenden and Crofton
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Semi-detached houses | 51.5% |
| Detached houses | 24.8% |
| Three-bedroom homes | 50.0% |
| Four or more bedrooms | 31.7% |
| Owned outright, no mortgage | 46.0% |
| Built 1919 to 1944 | 34.5% |
| Built 1945 to 1972 | 38.0% |
The census has no area called Farnborough and Crofton. The neighbourhood that holds this page’s point is the one the ONS calls Orpington South, around Ridgeway Crescent and Tubbenden Lane, so these figures describe the Crofton semis better than the village cottages. Flats are rare here, 6.5% of homes, which means almost every booking includes a staircase. With half the homes at three bedrooms and nearly a third at four or more, the job we price most often is the whole upstairs, flight included, done in one visit.
The build dates follow the same story. Just over a third of homes (34.5%) date from 1919 to 1944, and another 38.0% from 1945 to 1972; barely 1.4% are older than 1919. Most families own the house outright, 46.0% with no mortgage at all, and people who stay that long tend to keep a carpet down for a long time too, so the wear sits in fixed lanes, hall to kitchen and round the turn at the half-landing. A typical Tubbenden semi, with three bedrooms (£108), the through-lounge (£61) and the flight up to the half-landing (£41), comes to £210. Only 1.3% of homes lack central heating, so leaving the radiators on low helps the pile through its 6 to 7 hours of drying.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Bromley 035) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Mud off the Common, and the family dog
The marks we lift in BR6 come from family life. Footprints tracked in off Farnborough Common, scuffs on a beige stair carpet from football boots, a coffee ring on a cream lounge carpet that has sat there since the weekend. We move the settee and the armchairs ourselves and put them back where they stood. Pets are the other constant: the corner sofa after the dog has had an accident, a rug the cat has been sick on more than once. Hot-water extraction flushes the spot and treats the smell in the same pass, which a surface shampoo never manages.
There is a limit. If a pet has soaked through to the underlay over months, cleaning freshens the pile but cannot always pull the odour out of the backing and the floor beneath. We tell you on the day, before any money changes hands, when that has happened.
Parking, permits and getting in
Most of the semis have a drive or a paved frontage, and when we can pull onto it the hose goes straight through the front door. Not every street is free, though. Bromley runs permit zones around the edges of the ward: zone E at Locksbottom (Monday to Saturday, 8.30am to 6pm), the business-only LB zone for the Princess Parade and Crofton Road shops, two Farnborough zones (FV and WR), and the K1 zone west of Orpington station, which takes in York Rise, Newstead Avenue and a short stretch of Crofton Road. We check the signs on your road when you book.
The main roads need more care. Farnborough Way, Farnborough Common and the A232 as far as Farnborough Common are TfL red routes, where the van cannot stop to unload, so if you live on one we park in the nearest side road and walk the kit round. On the day, clear shoes and school bags off the stairs and lift anything breakable from the windowsills. Furniture is our job.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Farnborough and Crofton?
You get one fixed figure before we set off, nothing is added for coming out, and the rates match the rest of Bromley and every other London borough we cover.
- Carpet cleaning, 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
For a two-bed flat, both bedrooms plus the living room, the total is £115. Get a free quote, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
Sofas, rugs and the rest of the van
The same van handles the lot. Our hot-water carpet cleaning suits the wool and wool-mix pile you find in the older semis and the village cottages, and sofa and upholstery cleaning covers fabric three-piece suites as well as the leather settees plenty of village homes favour, cleaned and then conditioned so the hide stays supple. Anything loose-laid is cleaned where it lies through our rug cleaning service, wool pieces included, and a photo of an old Persian first tells us whether it is safe to do on site. For the rest of Bromley, or nearby Green Street Green and Chelsfield, the prices and the guarantee are identical.
Booking a clean in BR6: the usual questions
Which BR6 streets do you cover?
All of the Farnborough and Crofton ward, from Starts Hill Road and Tubbenden Lane through to Crofton Lane and the High Street in Farnborough village. We also reach the surrounding Orpington streets and out to Green Street Green, Chelsfield, Maypole and Downe. If you are inside BR6, we cover you.
Where will the cleaner park in Farnborough and Crofton?
On your drive, if you have one, and most homes on roads like Crofton Avenue and Andover Road do. Near Orpington station and at Locksbottom there are permit bays, so tell us your road and we will plan a legal spot nearby. In Farnborough village the High Street is tighter, so we pull onto a side road and run the hose in. None of it changes the price.
Can you handle an end-of-tenancy carpet clean?
Yes. About one home in ten here is privately rented (10.3% in the census), let-out semis and flats alike, and we clean the carpets back to the standard an inventory check expects, bedroom marks included, so the deposit can be released. Tell us it is an end of tenancy when you book and we allow the time to do it properly.
How long until carpets are dry in a Crofton 1930s semi?
dry within 6 to 7 hours in most rooms. We extract on a hot machine that pulls the bulk of the moisture back out, so you are not left waiting on a soaked carpet. The half-landing flights and heavier wool pile take a little longer, and an open window helps it along.
We are selling our semi. When should the carpets be done?
After the clear-out and a few days before the photographs. Boxes and spare furniture leave marks and dents that show in pictures, so we clean once the rooms are as you want them shown. The carpet takes up to 6 to 7 hours to dry, so book a morning slot and the agent can shoot the next day.
Can you do a four-bedroom house in one visit?
Yes. Here 31.7% of homes have four or more bedrooms, so a full upstairs is a normal booking for us. Each bedroom is priced from £36 and the flight from £41, and you get one fixed figure for the lot before we arrive. Doing it in a single visit means the landing and stairs dry together, and you only clear the hall once.
Every clean is backed by our re-clean guarantee: if a lifted mark comes back, we return and put it right at no charge. We are fully insured and DBS-checked, and we have cleaned carpets across Bromley since 2009.
