Close to half the homes in east Penge were built before 1900, from the 181 Alexandra Cottages of the 1860s to the bay-fronted terraces off the High Street, and many still have wool on the stairs. London Carpet Cleaning has worked Penge, SE20, since 2009. Cleaning costs from £36 a room, and carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours.
Cottages, almshouses and bay fronts
Penge is a Victorian and Edwardian district on the Bromley side of the Crystal Palace ridge. It grew fast once the railway came and the Palace was rebuilt on the hill above it, and the streets running off the High Street and Croydon Road are lined with bay-fronted terraces and period villas, a good number divided into one and two-bed conversions. The High Street itself was Penge New Road until the urban district was set up; Penge moved from the County of London to Kent in 1900 and became part of the London Borough of Bromley after the London Government Act 1963.
The standout is the Alexandra Cottages conservation area: 181 semi-detached cottages on Albert, Edward, Princes and Victor Roads and Hardings Lane, built in the 1860s by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes as garden homes for working families. They are small, with narrow stairs, and often still carpeted in wool. Older still are the almshouses: the Royal Watermen’s Almshouses on Beckenham Road, built in 1840 and 1841 to designs by George Porter, and the Queen Adelaide Almshouses of 1848 by Philip Hardwick. Penge East has Southeastern trains to Victoria, and Penge West is on the Windrush line of the London Overground, so the flats around both stations turn over with new tenants.
Zone PGE and the Alexandra streets
Parts of Penge sit in a Bromley controlled parking zone, zone PGE, which runs for just two hours a day, noon to 2pm. That makes timing easy: a morning job that finishes before twelve, or an afternoon start after two, means the van can use the permit bays like anyone else. If your clean runs across the middle of the day, a visitor permit or a nearby paid bay covers the gap, and we sort it on the phone when you book.
The Alexandra streets are tight and busy, so we bring a long hose run where the van cannot sit right outside. The cottage stairs are narrow; we cover the hall floor and keep the machine outside, and only the hose comes in. Crystal Palace Park is a short walk up the hill, and on a wet day boots and paws bring its mud in, so leave muddy shoes by the door and we will deal with the rest.
Why do some Penge flats dry slower?
Mostly because of where they are in the house. We aim for dry within 6 to 7 hours, and that holds in most rooms, but a heavily soiled carpet, a thick wool pile or a mattress takes longer, and on a cool day in a ground-floor flat in a converted villa it can stay damp into the evening. We tell you that at the door so you can plan around the room. Open a window or run the heating low and it speeds up; deep cleaning means real moisture going in and coming back out.
The recurring job around here is the rented conversion. So much of the period stock has been split into flats near the two stations that the end-of-tenancy clean comes up every week, a synthetic carpet handed back fresh with a dated receipt for the inventory clerk. Alongside that we get a steady run of family upholstery off Croydon Road and the Alexandra streets, the grey fabric sofa with a toddler’s worth of yoghurt and crayon worked into it, which we always spot-test first.
Penge East in figures
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Terraced houses | 29.6% |
| Semi-detached houses | 21.6% |
| Flats in converted houses | 19.4% |
| Rented privately | 22.3% |
| Three-bedroom homes | 29.2% |
| Built before 1900 | 49.7% |
The census splits Penge in two, and this page sits in Penge East, in Penge and Cator ward. It is a mixed housing stock (houses 55.0%, flats 44.8%), which is why no two Penge bookings look alike. Terraces lead at 29.6%, semis follow at 21.6%, and 19.4% of homes are flats in converted houses, with another 4.0% in flats over shops and other conversions. The age is the striking figure: 49.7% of homes were built before 1900 and 64.2% before 1919, so a lot of what we clean sits on original timber floors.
Sizes run evenly. Three bedrooms is the most common at 29.2%, two bedrooms close behind at 28.9%, and a three-bed house with a through-lounge and one flight of stairs comes to £210. Owners hold 59.0% of homes; private tenants hold 22.3% and social tenants 17.5%. Only 2.0% of homes lack central heating, so in most houses the heating on low is enough to keep drying on time.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Bromley 004) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Penge?
You get a fixed price before we arrive and pay no call-out fee. Penge pays the same as the rest of Bromley and every other London borough.
- Carpet, per bedroom, from £36
- Carpet, living room, from £43
- Through-lounge, from £61
- Stairs, one flight, from £41, which suits the narrow staircases in the cottages
- Two-seater sofa from £57; armchair from £33
- Rug up to 3m² from £35; mattress from £35
Tell us your rooms and you will have a fixed price in under a minute. Get a free quote, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
Carpets, curtains and sofas in SE20
We clean fitted carpets and stairs by hot-water extraction, which lifts the grit out of the base of the pile, and we match the water to the fibre: low-moisture for the wool in the period homes, a deeper hot rinse for a tougher synthetic. We also clean sofas and armchairs, clean wool rugs in your home as specialist rug cleaning, ask for a photo first of a silk piece, and freshen mattresses. Penge sits between Crystal Palace and Anerley in SE20, and for the rest of the borough see our Bromley carpet cleaning page.
What Penge asks before booking
Do you cover all of Penge, from the High Street to Alexandra Cottages?
Yes, the whole of SE20, from the High Street and Penge East down through the Alexandra Cottages to the Anerley Road end, including the flats around Penge West. We have cleaned this corner of Bromley since 2009, so the team knows the period terraces, the cottage staircases and the parking. There is no call-out fee wherever you are in the area.
Is parking a problem for the van on Penge streets?
Not often. Penge’s controlled zone, PGE, only runs from noon to 2pm, so we plan the visit around it or use a visitor permit or paid bay for that window. The Alexandra streets are tight and busy. Tell us your road when you book and we plan it, bringing a long hose run where the van cannot sit right outside.
Can you get a rented flat ready for the end of a tenancy?
Yes, end-of-tenancy carpets are a big part of our Penge work, given how many conversions sit around the two stations. We clean the carpet thoroughly, lift the traffic lanes, and give you a dated receipt for the agent or inventory clerk. Most tenants book it around the check-out so the room is dry for the inspection.
Do you clean curtains and upholstery as well as carpets?
We do. We clean fabric and velvet curtains in place on the rail where the fabric allows, which avoids shrinkage and lifts trapped cooking and damp smells, and we clean sofas and dining chairs on the same visit. It saves a second appointment when a Penge living room needs everything freshened together.
I live in one of the Alexandra Cottages. Is there anything different about cleaning there?
Only the scale. The conservation area protects the outside of the cottages; inside, the job is a small hall and a narrow flight, often with wool on the stairs. We keep the machine on the street and bring in only the hose, and wool gets a low-moisture clean. Stairs are priced by the flight, from £41, and a whole cottage is usually done in a morning.
Can I have a mattress cleaned and still sleep on it tonight?
Yes, if we come in the morning. A mattress holds more moisture than a carpet, so it needs the rest of the day with a window open or the heating on to dry right through. Stand it on its side if you can. A mattress starts from £35, and it is easy to add to a carpet clean while we are there; book an early slot and it will be ready by bedtime.
Every clean in Penge is backed by our re-clean guarantee: if a spot comes back, so do we, at no charge. We are fully insured, our cleaners are DBS-checked, and we have cleaned carpets, upholstery and rugs across SE20 and the rest of Bromley since 2009.
