The first families moved into Grahame Park in October 1971, into flat-roofed blocks and walkways laid over the old Hendon Aerodrome. Half a century on, Notting Hill Genesis is replacing them plot by plot. London Carpet Cleaning works the old maisonettes and the new blocks of Grahame Park, NW9, from £36 a room, with carpets dry within 6 to 7 hours.
Built on an aerodrome, rebuilt in plots
Grahame Park is Barnet’s largest housing estate, built by the Greater London Council on the site of Hendon Aerodrome and named after Claude Grahame-White, the aviation pioneer who ran the airfield. The first families moved in during October 1971, into plain brick terraces and long, low-rise, flat-roofed blocks threaded with pedestrian walkways in place of streets. The estate reached 1,777 homes, with shops and a library along a central strip called The Concourse.
Since 2002 Notting Hill Genesis has been the council’s partner in rebuilding about three quarters of it, and Barnet puts the full programme at around 4,000 new homes. By the council’s latest count 894 are finished, 595 of them affordable. Plot A, three blocks north of Heybourne Park, holds 209 affordable homes, 149 of them shared ownership. The next stage, approved in March 2020, is 2,088 homes around the Concourse and a remodelled Heybourne Park, and it realigns Lanacre Avenue as Bristol Avenue, where Barnet Council now has its offices. The last phase is not due to finish until spring 2032. Barnet College has moved into a new campus on the estate, the RAF Museum sits on Grahame Park Way at its northern edge, and Colindale station’s new ticket hall, with a laminated timber ceiling and a lift, opened on 22 December 2025, making the station step-free for the first time.
How do we reach your flat on the estate?
By planning it the day before. The rebuild keeps moving hoardings and road closures around, so we check the route to your block when we confirm the booking, and our hoses run a long way, so a bay short of your block or a walkway approach is rarely a problem. Weekday parking in the Colindale zone near the station is controlled from 8am to 6.30pm.
Several estate roads are also a School Street for Blessed Dominic Catholic Primary and St James’ Catholic High School. Great Strand (between Lower Strand and Everglade Strand), Little Strand, Broadhead Strand, Ruby Way and part of Everglade Strand close to motor traffic from 8.15am to 9.15am and 2.45pm to 3.45pm on weekdays, and the van has no exemption. Homes on those roads get a late-morning start. In the older blocks, check the lift is working the week we come, and if your maisonette is upstairs, clear the internal stair and landing; in the new plots, tell the concierge or the block manager we are expected.
What the census counts in Grahame Park
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Purpose-built flats | 64.5% |
| Rented from the council or a housing association | 50.6% |
| Shared ownership | 3.8% |
| Built 1973 to 1999 | 51.0% |
| Built 2000 or later | 35.9% |
| Two bedrooms | 39.9% |
The census area carries the estate’s own name and its figures read like a description of it. Nearly two thirds of homes (64.5%) are purpose-built flats and maisonettes, and half (50.6%) are rented from the council or a housing association. Almost nothing is older than the estate: the VOA puts 51.0% of homes in the 1973 to 1999 band and 35.9% from 2000 on. That second figure is the new plots, and it is why a working day here swings between a 1970s maisonette and a flat whose carpet is barely a year old.
The usual job is small. Two bedrooms is the most common size (39.9%) and one bedroom follows at 23.9%, so a booking is often a couple of bedrooms, a living room and a hall. Two bedrooms and a living room in a flat come to £115. Shared ownership stood at 3.8% in 2021 and has grown since, as Plot A alone added 149 shared-ownership homes. Only 2.8% of homes have no central heating, so the concrete floors are the bigger drying factor in winter.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Barnet 026) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Two estates in one diary
The estate’s split personality runs right through our diary. In the new blocks the work is end-of-tenancy cleaning: light polypropylene carpet that shows every scuff by the door and every mug ring by the sofa, brought back to colour between tenants. In the older blocks and maisonettes it is family work: living room and bedrooms done together, a flight of stairs and a landing, fabric sofas, and a steady run of mattress cleans, often two in one visit. Many of the 1970s layouts put the kitchen hard against the living space, so cooking film drifts onto the nearest carpet and dulls it. That film strips out well with hot water extraction.
A carpet that has been down since before the diggers arrived, with pile crushed flat in the doorways and a grey track worn from sofa to kitchen, will come up cleaner and fresher but not new. Cleaning removes soil; it cannot re-stand pile that years of footfall have worn away. If we think a carpet is near that point, we say so at the door, before any machine comes off the van.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Grahame Park?
The prices are fixed and there is no call-out fee; a Grahame Park flat pays the same rates as anywhere else in Barnet or London.
- Carpet cleaning from £36 per bedroom
- Living room carpet from £43
- Through-lounge carpet from £61
- Stairs, one flight, from £41
- Two-seater sofa from £57; mattress from £35
- Rug up to 3m² from £35
Get a free quote, or call 020 8077 8090 with your block and flat number.
Steam cleaning, sofas and rugs around Heybourne Park
Deep steam carpet cleaning is the core of what we do here, and the same van carries the kit for sofa and upholstery cleaning, so a fabric suite can be done on the same visit as the floors. Wool and delicate pieces go through our rug cleaning service, cleaned in your flat on the visit. We are around Colindale most weeks, cover The Hyde a few minutes south, and take bookings across the rest of Barnet.
Grahame Park, old blocks and new: your questions
Do you cover the new development plots as well as the original estate?
Yes, all of it: the remaining 1970s blocks, the completed new plots, the Heybourne Park phases as they hand over, and the streets immediately around the estate. If your address says Grahame Park, Colindale or simply NW9, you are inside our regular patch and pay the same fixed prices.
Where does your van park on the estate?
The Colindale controlled parking zone runs 8am to 6.30pm on weekdays, and the rebuild moves hoardings and closures around, so we check access the day before we come. A bay a short walk from your block is fine; the hoses reach.
Can the pale grey carpet in a new-build flat come back to colour?
Usually, yes. Most carpet fitted in the new blocks is a light polypropylene twist, which takes a strong clean without shrinking and releases food, mud and traffic marks well. It is the job we do most often in the newer part of the estate, usually at the end of a tenancy.
How long do carpets take to dry in a Grahame Park maisonette?
dry within 6 to 7 hours is normal across Grahame Park. The original 1971 blocks, like the maisonettes off the old Lanacre Avenue, sit on solid concrete floors that hold the cold, so in winter allow a full evening, crack a window and keep the heating on low. We extract as much moisture as the machine allows before we leave.
We live on one of the Strands. When can you come?
Between the School Street closures. Great Strand, Little Strand, Broadhead Strand, Ruby Way and part of Everglade Strand are closed to motor traffic from 8.15am to 9.15am and from 2.45pm to 3.45pm on weekdays. We book you from about half past nine, which leaves the late morning and early afternoon for a flat, or we come on a Saturday, when the closures do not run.
We have just moved into a new plot. When should the carpet have its first clean?
Give it time to settle. A new carpet sheds loose fibre for the first few weeks, which is normal, so vacuum often and leave it. Book the first deep clean once a grey lane shows from the door or the hall, usually within the first year in a busy home. Spills are different: blot them straight away with plain water and call us before they set.
Every clean in Grahame Park is covered by our re-clean guarantee: if you are not happy with any area we have cleaned, we come back and do it again free. Our technicians are fully insured and DBS-checked, and we have been cleaning carpets across north-west London since 2009.
