Paddington Basin opened in 1801 to land straw and coal off the canal, and its old wharves are now lined with lift-served flats, while south of Praed Street the white stucco terraces of Tyburnia run down to Hyde Park. London Carpet Cleaning cleans both halves of Paddington, W2, with rooms from £36. Carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours.
Tyburnia, the station and the Basin
Most of Paddington south of Praed Street was once the Bishop of London’s Paddington estate. In 1827 the bishop’s surveyor planned it as a pattern of wide streets, crescents and squares between Praed Street, Edgware Road and Bayswater Road, set either side of two boulevards, Westbourne Terrace and Sussex Gardens. The land passed to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1836, and their successors, the Church Commissioners, are still the main freeholder of what is now called the Hyde Park Estate.
The houses of that plan are the tall stucco-fronted terraces that still line Sussex Gardens and Westbourne Terrace, nearly all of them split into flats with high ceilings and the original cornicing. Connaught Square keeps its brown-brick terraces over basements, and behind the grand frontages run the mews that once held the horses and carriages. Westminster first made this part of town a conservation area, Bayswater, in 1967.
North of the station the picture changes. The canal basin was already in decline when the Westway went up beside it in the late 1960s, and the goods yard closed in the late 1980s. Paddington Walk, 232 flats, was finished in 2005, and the Merchant Square blocks followed; No. 4 alone has 196 flats over 16 storeys and was completed in 2013. These are tall lift-served blocks, and most of the flats in them are fitted wall to wall with pale synthetic carpet.
Paddington homes in census figures, from the station to Marble Arch
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Flats in purpose-built blocks | 74.9% |
| Flats in converted houses | 9.5% |
| Terraced houses | 9.8% |
| Rented privately | 53.6% |
| Four or more bedrooms | 11.0% |
| Built in 2000 or later | 28.5% |
| Heated by electricity only | 29.8% |
This census area takes in the station and the whole Hyde Park Estate, down to St George’s Fields by Marble Arch. The Basin flats are counted with Little Venice, so they are not in these figures, and yet 28.5% of the homes here still date from 2000 or later. Three in four (74.9%) are flats in purpose-built blocks. More than half of all households (53.6%) rent privately, which is why end-of-tenancy work fills so much of the Paddington diary.
The period stock shows up in the smaller rows. Flats in converted houses, 9.5%, are the stucco houses divided floor by floor, each with a share of a long common stair. Terraced houses make up 9.8% of homes, from the mews cottages to the Connaught Square houses, and 11.0% of homes have four or more bedrooms, so a whole-house clean here can run to several flights. A three-bedroom mews house behind Westbourne Terrace, with its sitting room and the one flight of stairs, comes to £192.
Heating matters for drying. Close to three homes in ten (29.8%) are heated by electricity alone, which in the blocks usually means storage or panel heaters. A carpet still dries on time in those flats as long as the air moves, so crack a window or run the extractor fan for an hour after we leave.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Westminster 015) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
What do most Paddington bookings involve?
Two kinds of job. In the period conversions off Westbourne Terrace and across the Hyde Park Estate it is wool carpet and stair runners, plus rugs that have lived through decades of use. Closer to the station, along Sussex Gardens and Praed Street, it is fast lettings work: tenancies turn over quickly near St Mary’s Hospital, so we clean a lot of carpets where a deposit and an agent’s check-out report are on the line.
Basement and lower-ground flats, which W2 has plenty of, hold damp longer than the floors above, so we run extra extraction passes there and leave a window cracked to keep drying close to the usual time. We are also clear about stains at the door. An old curry or red-wine mark that has sat in a light wool pile for months will usually lift a great deal, but it may not vanish completely, and we will say so before we start.
Two parking zones meet at Sussex Gardens
Sussex Gardens is the line between two of Westminster’s parking zones. North of it, Norfolk Square, Talbot Square, London Street and the east end of Praed Street sit in sub-zone B7, where paid bays and single yellow lines are controlled from 8.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Saturday, and resident bays are reserved 24 hours a day. South of it, the Hyde Park Estate is in zone F, with the same paid-bay hours. On the station side, Westbourne Terrace and Eastbourne Terrace are in sub-zone B5, where resident bays are kept for permit holders until 8.30pm every day.
Westminster runs no visitor permit scheme, so the van goes in a paid bay, booked on a parking app, and we pay for it. Edgware Road, the eastern edge of the estate, is a TfL red route, which means we cannot stop outside a flat on it to unload; we come in from a side street and walk the kit round. The mews are narrow, so the van waits at the mouth and the hose runs in. For a lower-ground flat, clear a path down the area steps and through the hall; for a Basin block, tell the building’s front desk the day before so the service lift is free.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Paddington?
We set the price before we come, nothing is charged for the trip, and a flat in W2 pays the same rates as a flat anywhere else in London.
- 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; armchair from £33
- Rug up to 3m² from £35; mattress from £35
Get a free quote, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
Upholstery and rugs on the same visit
The same van handles the lot. Our hot-water carpet cleaning suits both the wool runners in the older flats and the greige fitted carpet in the Basin new-builds, lifting the grit that a vacuum leaves behind. For sofas and tub chairs we bring fabric upholstery cleaning matched to the material, the booking that comes in most before a family gathering. Loose rugs, older hand-knotted pieces included, go through our specialist rug service in your home, with a photo sent first for the older ones so we can say whether they are safe on site. We cover the rest of Westminster on the same terms, along with neighbouring Bayswater and Lancaster Gate.
Asked in Paddington and Tyburnia
Which parts of W2 do you cover?
All of it. That runs from Edgware Road and the Hyde Park Estate in the east, across Tyburnia and the garden squares, out to Westbourne Terrace, the Paddington Basin and the canal at Little Venice. If your flat is in W2, you are inside our area and pay the same fixed rate as anywhere else.
How do you manage parking on these streets?
Almost all of Paddington is controlled parking, and Westminster issues no visitor permits, so the van uses a pay-to-park bay near you and we settle it by app. On the mews and the busier hospital end, we plan a loading spot ahead so the kit goes in and out cleanly.
Can you turn round an end-of-tenancy carpet quickly?
Yes, and it is a big share of our W2 work, given the lettings around the station and St Mary’s. We clean to a check-out standard, measure every room so the price is right before we start, and leave you a dated receipt for the agent or landlord. Booked for the morning, the carpets are dry by the evening, in time for a viewing the next day.
How long do carpets take to dry in a Paddington basement flat?
Usually 6 to 7 hours, because we extract most of the moisture back out of the pile. In a lower-ground or basement flat, common across Tyburnia and under the Connaught Square terraces, drying can run a little longer, so we add extraction passes and ask to leave a window ajar. Until it is dry, keep to clean socks and take care on the stairs.
Do you clean flats in the Merchant Square and Paddington Basin blocks?
Yes, and they are some of the easiest jobs we do. The buildings are lift-served, so let the concierge or building manager know the day and we bring the kit up in the service lift. The carpet in these newer flats is usually a pale synthetic, which takes a hot rinse well and comes back bright.
I let several flats in one Sussex Gardens house. Can you do them in one visit?
Yes. With more than half the homes here rented privately, landlords with a whole converted house are regular customers. We clean each flat in turn, priced room by room, and can add the common stair at the stairs rate. Each flat gets its own dated receipt, so every tenancy file has the right paperwork.
Every clean carries our re-clean guarantee: if a treated area does not come up right, we come back and put it right at no charge. We are fully insured, our cleaners are DBS-checked, and we have cleaned across Paddington and the rest of Westminster since 2009.
