Charles Blondin, the man who walked a tightrope over Niagara, retired to Northfields in 1886, and Blondin Avenue and Niagara Avenue still carry his name through the Edwardian terraces either side of Northfield Avenue. London Carpet Cleaning has worked Northfields, W5 and W13, since 2009, mostly on tiled-hall houses with steep stairs. A room costs from £36, and the carpet takes up to 6 to 7 hours to dry.
Orchards to Edwardian terraces
Maps from 1890 show Northfields as almost all orchard, with a few houses on Little Ealing Lane. The District Railway arrived in 1883, and once a station opened on the avenue on 16 April 1908 the fields filled fast. Most of what stands now is two-storey Edwardian terraces built between about 1890 and 1910, on a grid of streets around the station, Northcroft Road, Julien Road and Wellington Road among them. The pattern barely changes from road to road: a bay front, a tiled hall, a through-lounge knocked into one and a steep flight of stairs. South towards Little Ealing the stock is older, with a surviving cluster of 18th-century houses.
The station is the landmark. Charles Holden rebuilt it in brick, concrete and glass, the new ticket hall opened on 18 December 1932, and it has been Grade II listed since 1994. It sits in Zone 3 on the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly line, with Northfields depot just to the west towards Boston Manor. Across the avenue, the former Odeon of 1932 is Grade II* listed and has been the Ealing Christian Centre since 1994. Lammas Park, set aside for public use in 1881, is a short walk east, and the Northfields Allotments to the north are the oldest still in use in London.
Northfields homes by the numbers
| Measure | Share of homes |
|---|---|
| Semi-detached houses | 16.9% |
| Purpose-built flats | 17.4% |
| Owned outright | 30.7% |
| Two bedrooms | 27.1% |
| Built 1945 to 1972 | 4.7% |
| Built 2000 or later | 2.6% |
| Heated by electricity only | 7.3% |
For once the census name fits the place: Ealing 032 is called Northfields and sits in Northfield ward, taking in the avenue and the streets on both sides.
The two build-period rows are the telling ones. Only 4.7% of homes went up between 1945 and 1972 and 2.6% since 2000, so almost every carpet we clean here is laid in an Edwardian house or in a flat cut from one. Purpose-built flats are 17.4% of homes, small blocks such as Kemsley Court on Rathgar Avenue among them, and two-bedroom homes are 27.1%. A two-bed maisonette over a Northfields terrace, with both bedrooms and the living room done, costs £115.
Almost a third of households (30.7%) own outright, which in practice means long-stay owners and carpets that have been down a long time, often wool. Those get a cooler, low-moisture clean. The figure to plan around is heating: 7.3% of homes run on electricity alone, usually storage or panel heaters in the flats. In those rooms the carpet still dries, but in winter it needs a window open and a heater left on for the afternoon.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Ealing 032) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Zone N and the steep Edwardian stairs
Most of Northfields is in Ealing’s Zone N, and it has some of the shortest control hours in the borough: 9am to 10am and 3pm to 4pm, Monday to Saturday. Blondin Avenue, Niagara Avenue, Julien Road, Wellington Road and parts of Northfield Avenue and Northcroft Road are all inside it. Outside those two hours anyone can park in the bays.
That makes the timing easy. A van that arrives after 10am and leaves before 3pm needs no visitor permit at all, and a two- or three-room job fits that window with time to spare. For a whole house that runs past 3pm we book a one-hour visitor session through PayByPhone with you in advance, or move the van for the hour. The control windows fall at school-run times, which is when the side roads are busiest anyway.
Indoors, the work is the stairs. Edwardian flights here are narrow and steep, and grit packs into the corners against the spindles where a vacuum head never reaches. We work each tread and riser with a stair tool, so allow a little longer for a staircase than for a bedroom. Clear shoes and post off the hall floor before we come, and anything stacked on the landing.
Park mud on pale wool
The job we are called for most is pale carpet after a winter of foot traffic. Many of these houses have cream or oatmeal wool in the lounge, and with Lammas Park and the allotments close by, dogs and children carry in a steady supply of mud and grass. Hot-water extraction lifts it from the base of the pile and the carpet is dry within 6 to 7 hours.
The limit is old grit. On wool that has had pale dirt ground in for years, a deep clean brings the carpet a long way back but will not always make it look new, especially on the most-walked edge of a stair tread or at the lounge doorway. We say on the day how far we expect it to come up, before we start.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Northfields?
Every price is fixed when you book. Nobody pays to have us turn up, and the list below is the one we use in every London borough.
- Carpet, per bedroom, from £36
- Living room 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.
Sofas, rugs and the rest of the house
Most of our work here is hot-water carpet cleaning in the Edwardian terraces, and the same van handles the furniture. We clean three-piece suites and tired settees with upholstery cleaning matched to the fabric. Rugs get proper rug cleaning in the home, and for a hand-knotted Persian we ask for a photo first so we can say whether it is safe to clean on site. We cover the rest of Ealing too, and if you are over towards Pitshanger or Ealing Broadway we can usually be with you the same week.
Northfields bookings: what people ask
Do you cover Northfields from Northfield Avenue down to Little Ealing?
Yes, all of Northfields across W5 and W13, from Northfield Avenue and station streets like Northcroft Road and Julien Road down to Little Ealing, and north past the Northfields Allotments towards West Ealing. Tell us the postcode when you call and we will confirm the slot.
Where will you park, given the CPZ?
Most of Northfields is in Zone N, which only controls the kerb from 9am to 10am and from 3pm to 4pm, Monday to Saturday. Outside those hours there is usually a bay free. If your visit runs into a controlled hour, we sort a PayByPhone visitor session or a bay with you beforehand, so the parking is never your problem.
Do you handle dog and park mud on light carpets?
Yes, that is one of our most common Northfields jobs. With Lammas Park and the open ground close by, pale lounge carpets pick up a lot of ground-in mud and grass over a wet winter. Hot-water extraction pulls it out of the base of the pile, and a pet-safe pre-treatment deals with the smell that often comes with it.
How long does the carpet take to dry?
Most carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours, because the machine extracts the bulk of the water and leaves the pile only damp. Heavy wool or a cold day can stretch it a little. Crack a window or leave the heating ticking over and a morning clean is usually back in use by the evening.
Is Northfields a conservation area?
Not as a whole. Ealing consulted on a Northfields Conservation Area covering the avenue and the Edwardian grid, and on 19 November 2025 the planning committee dropped it after seven in ten respondents objected. The roads around Lammas Park did become a conservation area that day. Inside the house none of this changes the clean; the age of the carpet and the stairs does.
My flat only has storage heaters. Will the carpet dry?
Yes. About one home in fourteen here (7.3%) is heated by electricity alone, and we clean plenty of them. We extract hard, so the carpet is left damp to the touch. In winter, run the heaters as normal, open a window a few centimetres and keep doors open between rooms. Book a morning slot and the room is usually back in use by the evening.
If a treated patch shows again as the carpet dries, ring us and we come back and re-clean it free; that is our guarantee. Our cleaners are DBS-checked, the business is fully insured, and Northfields has been on our round since 2009.
