In 1749 Ephraim Potter and William Moore began distilling lavender water in Mitcham on an industrial scale, and the purple fields that fed them gave this corner of CR4 its name. London Carpet Cleaning has worked across Lavender Fields since 2009, in Victorian terraces and newer flats where carpets take heavy daily use. A room is from £36, and carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours.
From lavender beds to streets
Mitcham was best known in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for growing medicinal and aromatic herbs and distilling their oils. Lavender became its signature crop, though peppermint actually earned more. A photograph from 20 July 1904 shows the harvest still going on, the workers cutting with hand tools called mint hooks, but few growers stayed much beyond the turn of the century. Many moved their business elsewhere, and the lavender fields were given over to market gardening before the houses came. Lavender still turns up on the Merton coat of arms and on the Tooting and Mitcham United badge.
Lavender Fields today is the name of a Merton council ward, first used at the 2002 elections in place of an older Lavender ward, with about 11,400 residents on 1.16 square kilometres. It lies north of Mitcham town centre, towards Colliers Wood, around Lavender Avenue and Victoria Road. Colliers Wood station on the Northern line is the nearest Tube for the northern streets, and Mitcham town centre is a walk to the south. The housing mixes Victorian and Edwardian terraces with later flats and houses.
Lavender Fields homes by the figures
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Built 1973 to 1999 | 43.3% |
| Built before 1919 | 32.5% |
| Terraced houses | 32.6% |
| Flats in purpose-built blocks | 34.1% |
| Rented privately | 39.0% |
| Rented from the council or a housing association | 18.8% |
The surprise in the figures is the date. The largest single band in the VOA count is 1973 to 1999, at 43.3% of homes, ahead of the pre-1919 stock at 32.5%. So this is not mainly an interwar estate. It is older terraces with a great deal of late twentieth-century housing alongside them, much of it flats (purpose-built blocks are 34.1% of homes). Interwar homes account for 16.7%.
Renting dominates. Private tenants make up 39.0% of households and social tenants another 18.8%, so well over half of homes are rented, and end-of-tenancy cleans are a big part of the work here. Families are common too: 32.0% of homes have three bedrooms. For a three-bed terrace where the front and back rooms have been opened into one, plus the stairs, the clean comes to £210. Heating is worth a mention, because 2.7% of homes have no central heating and 15.4% rely on electricity alone; in a cold room a carpet takes longer, so we leave it as dry as we can and suggest a window open a crack.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Merton 008) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Getting the van close in CR4
Parking varies across Mitcham. Merton’s town-centre zone MTC runs Monday to Saturday from 8.30am to 11pm, and MTC1 runs Monday to Saturday to 6.30pm, while some of the surrounding zones, such as FG1 and MT, run on weekdays only. Most residential streets here are easier than the town centre, and many homes have a driveway or space out front we can pull onto, which is all we need. If your road is permit-only during the day, tell us when you book and we will plan around it.
In the blocks of flats, let us know the floor and whether there is a lift, and clear the communal hall of buggies and bikes if you can. In a terrace, move shoes and coats off the stairs. Many households here have children and pets, so if the dog can go out for the hour, the carpets dry without paw prints on them.
Family wear and sofa marks
The job here is family wear. We clean a lot of front rooms and stair runs that have gone dark with everyday foot traffic, and fabric sofas with juice and ground-in crumbs from the children. Pet accidents near doors and hallways are common too, and in autumn and winter muddy paws and boots get walked straight in. A hot-water extraction clean lifts the dirt and most of the smell.
An old pet-urine stain that has soaked through into the underlay can come back as a faint odour on a warm day, even after a thorough clean of the carpet face. If a mark is long-standing we will tell you that up front, because the smell often lives below the fibre where surface cleaning cannot fully reach.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Lavender Fields?
We quote a fixed price before the visit, charge nothing to come out, and use the same price list in Mitcham as everywhere else in London.
- 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
A two-bed rented flat with its living room is £115. Get a free quote, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
What we clean in Mitcham homes
Our main job is hot-water carpet cleaning that rinses the dirt out and leaves the pile clean and on its way to dry within 6 to 7 hours. We also clean sofas and fabric chairs through our upholstery service, and we clean larger pieces in your home with our rug cleaning, which suits a heavy lounge rug that is a struggle to lift, as it stays on your floor. For homes across the rest of Merton, or in neighbouring Mitcham and over towards Phipps Bridge, the same prices and the same van apply.
Lavender Fields: common questions
Which Lavender Fields streets do you cover, from Lavender Avenue to Sandy Lane?
All of Lavender Fields and the rest of CR4: Lavender Avenue, Bond Road, Ashtree Avenue, Oakmead Place, Sandy Lane, Portland Road and the smaller roads off them. There is no extra charge for any part of Mitcham, and we are out this way most weeks, so a midweek or weekend slot is usually easy to book.
Is parking a problem on the estate?
Most residential streets here are easier than the town centre, where the controlled zones run through the day and, in zone MTC, into the evening. Many homes have a driveway or space out front we can pull onto. If your road is permit-only during the day, let us know when you book and we will plan the visit around it.
Can you get child and pet marks out of a fabric sofa?
Usually, yes. Spills like juice and squashed biscuit, and the general grime that builds up where children sit, respond well to upholstery cleaning, and the fabric comes back fresher and brighter. We test a hidden patch first and work to the maker’s cleaning code so the material is treated correctly.
How long will the carpet take to dry in a Lavender Fields family home?
Most carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours, and until then we ask you to keep to socks, not shoes. A cold room or a stair run heavily soiled by a busy household can take longer, so on a damp winter day we will tell you to allow more time before putting heavy furniture back.
Why is the area called Lavender Fields?
Because Mitcham grew lavender commercially for well over a century. Industrial distilling of lavender water began here in 1749 under Ephraim Potter and William Moore, and the crop was still being cut in 1904. Few growers lasted much beyond 1900, and the fields went to market gardening before they were built on. The name survives in the council ward, and the flower is on Merton’s coat of arms.
Do you clean children’s mattresses?
Yes, from £35 a mattress, and it is a common add-on here. We vacuum it and treat any marks before extracting, which lifts the sweat and spills that build up in a child’s bed. A mattress holds more water than a carpet, so clean it in the morning and leave it to air for a few hours before you make the bed up again.
Every clean comes with our re-clean guarantee: if a mark we treated lifts and then reappears, we come back and put it right. We are fully insured and DBS-checked, and we have cleaned across Mitcham and the wider borough since 2009.
