Northfield Avenue was a country lane between Ealing Dean and Little Ealing until the Edwardian builders arrived, and the allotments at its top end, set aside in 1832, are the oldest still in use in London. The bay-fronted terraces that now line the grid either side are what we clean most. London Carpet Cleaning has worked Northfields, W13, since 2009, with prices from £36 a room and most carpets dry within 6 to 7 hours.
From North Field Lane to an Edwardian grid
The avenue started as North Field Lane. In 1832 the Bishop of London, Charles James Blomfield, had Ealing Dean Common enclosed as allotments for the poor, and in 1881 Lammas Park was set aside for public recreation. The District Railway’s line to Hounslow crossed the fields in 1883, but it was the tram along the Uxbridge Road in 1901 and the opening of Northfield station in 1908 that set off the building. By the 1910s the fields had become a dense grid of terraced streets running off the avenue, much of it put up by the Steel family, with front gardens and long back gardens.
The bulk of the stock is that Edwardian terrace, plain in outline but full of small variations because plots went to different builders. Julien Road, Wellington Road, Balfour Road and Leighton Road are typical: bay-fronted, tree-lined, with front gardens mostly intact. Northfield Avenue itself is a B-road of independent shops running down to Little Ealing Lane, where an inn has stood on the site of the Plough since 1722, though today’s building is a mid-Victorian coach house. Ealing Council drew up a conservation area appraisal for the grid in 2023 and consulted on making it a conservation area, which says a lot about how much of the original fabric survives.
Travel is the Piccadilly line from Northfields station, Charles Holden’s 1932 rebuild, Grade II listed, in zone 3 on the Heathrow branch. Blondin Park and the roads beside it, Blondin Avenue and Niagara Avenue, are named after the tightrope walker Charles Blondin, who died at his Niagara House in Ealing in 1897.
Northfields in the census, one table
| Homes | Share |
|---|---|
| Terraced houses | 20.9% |
| Semi-detached houses | 13.9% |
| One bedroom | 31.1% |
| Two bedrooms | 31.2% |
| Owned outright | 17.5% |
| Built before 1900 | 25.1% |
Northfields has no census area of its own. Our page point, at the top of Northfield Avenue near the allotments, falls in the one the ONS calls West Ealing (Ealing 028), which also takes in Dean Gardens and the West Ealing Broadway. That pulls the figures towards flats. One-bed and two-bed homes are almost level at 31.1% and 31.2%, so six homes in ten are small, and many of those are flats carved out of terraces or built in the blocks near the Broadway.
The houses are there too: 20.9% terraced and 13.9% semi-detached, and a quarter of all homes (25.1%) date from before 1900, the earlier Victorian streets by the allotments and around Lammas Park. Only 17.5% are owned outright, fewer than in most of Ealing’s family areas, because so much of the stock is rented. Three bedrooms, a lounge and the staircase in a Northfields terrace add up to £192. In the 2.4% of homes without central heating, we open a window and build in extra time.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Ealing 028) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Sun-faded wool, nail varnish and hall tiles
In houses of this age the carpet is usually a wool or wool-blend twist on the stairs and landing, and a good clean lifts it well. The jobs we are called for here are very domestic: a child’s nail varnish spilled across a bedroom carpet, party marks in a front room, the dull sticky patch on a leather sofa parked by a sunny conservatory, a long lounge curtain that has held the previous owner’s smoke for years. We also get the original Victorian and Edwardian hallway tiles, which come back to life with the right treatment and no water near the skirting.
One thing cleaning cannot do. Where a wool carpet has been bleached pale by years of sun along a south-facing bay, cleaning will lift the soil and freshen the pile, but it will not put the lost colour back. Long-set dye loss is permanent, and we will tell you that before we start.
Zones N and JJ, and the avenue itself
Most of the grid south of the allotments is in Ealing’s Zone N, Northfields: Northfield Avenue’s middle and southern stretch, plus Blondin Avenue, Niagara Avenue, Julien Road, Wellington Road, Windermere Road, Ridley Avenue and their neighbours. The controls are light, 9am to 10am and 3pm to 4pm, but they apply on Saturdays as well as weekdays. At the top of the avenue, the odd numbers up to 161 and side roads such as Broomfield Road, Churchfield Road, Carew Road and Dane Road are in Zone JJ, Ealing Dean, controlled 10am to 11am and 3pm to 4pm on weekdays only.
Either way, a van that arrives after the morning hour can stay all day. On the avenue itself, the flats over the shops are reached by a separate door and a steep stair, so we park on the nearest side road and walk the hose round. Terrace halls here are narrow and run straight to the stairs; clear the coats and the buggy, and lift anything stored on the half-landing.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Northfields?
We set the price before the day and do not add a call-out fee; it is the same tariff we use in every borough.
- Carpet cleaning, per bedroom, from £36
- 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, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
The cleaning we do along the avenue
The core job is hot-water-extraction steam carpet cleaning, which rinses soil from deep in the pile, which takes up to 6 to 7 hours to dry. For sofas and armchairs, our upholstery cleaning covers fabric suites and leather, including the conditioning that brings a sun-tired leather three-seater back to life. Loose rugs get specialist rug cleaning in your home, which suits the wool pieces that turn up in period homes, and a photo of a silk-mix one first tells us whether it is safe on site. Fixed prices apply across the rest of Ealing too, and in neighbouring West Ealing up the avenue.
Northfields: questions we get asked
Which roads and postcodes do you cover around Northfields?
We cover the whole of Northfields W13 and the streets that spill into W5 around Wellington Road and Windermere Road, from Northfield Avenue across to Little Ealing and up past the allotments. If you are near the station or anywhere off the avenue, you are well within our patch, and the location costs nothing extra.
Is parking a problem for you on these streets?
Northfields sits mostly in CPZ Zone N, but the restriction here is unusually light: only 9am to 10am and 3pm to 4pm, Monday to Saturday. Outside those two short windows the terraces park freely, so van access is rarely an issue. If your slot falls inside them, a visitor permit on the dashboard covers it.
Can you get old Victorian and Edwardian hallway tiles clean?
Yes. The encaustic and geometric tiled paths and hallways common in these houses respond well to a proper hard-floor clean, which lifts decades of mop residue and brings the original colours through. We keep the water controlled so it does not run under the skirting or into the floorboards, and we can seal the tiles afterwards on request.
How long do carpets take to dry in a Northfields Edwardian terrace?
Typically 6 to 7 hours to dry, as the extraction pass recovers most of the water. Thick wool on a cooler ground floor, common enough in the terraces off Northfield Avenue, can take a little longer, so we leave the airflow set up to speed it along. A morning clean is usually dry by the evening, so keep heavy traffic and furniture off it until then.
Is the top of Northfield Avenue in Zone N too?
No. The northern end, the odd numbers up to 161 and the roads around the allotments such as Broomfield Road and Churchfield Road, is in Zone JJ, Ealing Dean. It is controlled from 10am to 11am and 3pm to 4pm on weekdays, and not at all on Saturdays, which makes a Saturday booking easy there. Zone N, further down the avenue, includes Saturdays.
Can you get the machine up to a one-bed flat over a shop?
Yes. One-bed homes are almost a third of this census area, and many are above the shops on Northfield Avenue with a steep private stair. Our kit is built to be carried. We clean the stair as one flight, from £41, then the bedroom and living room, and the hose runs from the van on the nearest side road.
Should a spot lift and then come back, so do we, free, under our re-clean guarantee. We are fully insured and DBS-checked, and Northfields has been part of our patch since 2009.
