The windmill tower on Old Mill Road dates from 1764, stopped grinding in the 1840s and has been part of the Old Mill pub since 1853, on the northern edge of Plumstead Common. Below it, long lines of two-storey Victorian terraces run down towards the High Street. London Carpet Cleaning covers all of Plumstead, SE18, from £36 a room, and carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours.
How Plumstead grew up the hill
Plumstead filled up fast once the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich started hiring. The council’s appraisal of the Plumstead Common Conservation Area records the parish growing from about 28,000 people in the late 1860s to 63,327 by 1907, with the new streets spreading east from Woolwich: first the Burrage estate on the western slope, then the Herbert estate after 1870, then the Plumstead Park estate late in the century. By 1900 the Common was ringed with housing. Today three and a half miles of mostly two-storey late Victorian terraces face onto it, on roads such as Lakedale Road (once called Cage Lane) and Herbert Road. Up the ancient line of Plum Lane, towards Shooters Hill, the houses get larger, with Victorian and Edwardian villas and a good deal of original woodwork.
The council designated the Plumstead Common Conservation Area in May 1976, and it covers 72.7 hectares, the Common included. The ground is not flat. The appraisal describes deep valleys, or coombes, cut into the Common with housing on steep ground around them, which is something you notice carrying a machine up a front path. Plumstead station, down by the High Street, opened in 1859.
West of the Common, towards Woolwich, the picture changes again. After the Second World War council projects transformed that side of Plumstead, and the biggest of them was the Glyndon estate: almost 2,000 homes, begun in 1959 and not finished until 1981.
What the Woolwich Glyndon census area shows
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Flats in purpose-built blocks | 51.1% |
| Terraced houses | 30.7% |
| Rented from the council or a housing association | 50.4% |
| Three-bedroom homes | 27.8% |
| Built before 1919 | 24.3% |
| Built 1973 to 1999 | 37.2% |
The census point for this page lands in Woolwich Glyndon, the neighbourhood that takes in the Glyndon estate and the older streets beside it, and it shows two Plumsteads side by side. Just over half the homes (51.1%) are flats in purpose-built blocks, and half the households (50.4%) rent from the council or a housing association. The VOA count dates them: 29.2% built between 1945 and 1972 and 37.2% between 1973 and 1999, the estate years.
The other Plumstead is the Victorian one. Terraced houses make up 30.7% of homes and 24.3% were built before 1919, most of them (17.6% of all homes) before 1900. Those are mostly houses with the stairs rising from a narrow hall, often with a wool or wool-mix carpet on the treads. For one of those terraces, three bedrooms, the front room and the stairs, the total is £192. Heating is rarely the obstacle: 2.5% of homes have none, so most carpets dry on time with a window open.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Greenwich 009) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Parking zones, steep paths and mud off the Common
Plumstead has two council parking zones that matter to us. Plumstead Station zone (PL) only operates Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 11am, so after 11 we can usually park outside. Plumstead Central zone (PC), which takes in streets nearer the High Street and Lakedale Road, runs Monday to Saturday from 9am to 5.30pm, and there we need a pay bay or one of your visitor vouchers. Up on the Common the roads are outside both zones, and a lot of the larger houses have a drive.
The hill decides more than the parking does. Front paths climb, and some houses sit well above the pavement, so we bring a long hose and leave the machine on the van where we can. The Common sends grass and mud to the door from October to March, and that soil works into the bottom stair and the first metre of hall carpet. If you can, keep the hall clear of shoes and pushchairs before we arrive; a clear run from the door to the stairs saves the most time.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Plumstead?
Our prices are fixed before we arrive and there is no call-out fee, whether you are at the bottom of the hill or by the Old Mill; the same list applies across Greenwich and every London borough we cover.
- 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.
The work we do most in SE18
Our main service is hot-water extraction carpet cleaning, the right method for the wool and wool-blend carpets common in the older houses up by the Common, with the water and heat turned down on wool. In the estate flats it is mostly synthetic carpet in hard use, which takes a fuller rinse. We also handle sofa and upholstery cleaning, fabric corner suites and tub chairs included, and for anything loose we offer rug cleaning in the home, so a soiled rug is pre-treated, shampooed and rinsed on the spot. The bread-and-butter job is family wear: a lounge that takes the brunt of daily life, and a stair carpet worn in a strip down the middle. On a wool runner walked for fifteen years the pile at the centre of each tread is flattened and worn away; cleaning brings the colour back, but it cannot rebuild lost fibre, and we say so on arrival. We work right across Greenwich, so for streets beyond SE18 see our Greenwich carpet cleaning page, and we cover neighbouring Woolwich and Shooters Hill on the same rates.
Plumstead bookings: what people ask
Do you cover all of Plumstead, from the Arsenal terraces to the Common?
Yes, all of SE18 in Plumstead, from the terraces near the High Street and Lakedale Road up to Plumstead Common Road, Riverdale Road and out towards Wickham Lane and the Bostall border, plus the Glyndon estate on the Woolwich side. No part of the area costs extra, and the price is the same at the bottom of the hill and by the Old Mill at the top.
Is parking a problem for the van near Plumstead station?
Not often. The streets around the station are in zone PL, which only runs on weekday mornings from 9.30am to 11am, and closer to the High Street zone PC runs Monday to Saturday in the daytime. Up around the Common many houses have a drive or free kerb space. We carry everything in, so a short walk is no trouble.
Do you do end-of-tenancy carpet cleaning here?
Yes, and it is a steady part of our Plumstead work, from rented terraces near the station to flats on the estates. We clean to a check-out standard, traffic lanes and tenant spills included, and supply a dated receipt for your agent or landlord. Booking the carpets once the flat is empty gives the best result.
How long do carpets take to dry in an older Plumstead terrace?
Usually 6 to 7 hours to dry, so a morning clean in an aired room is ready by the evening. The ground-floor front rooms in the older terraces can hold a little damp, so we leave windows open and air moving. A full flight of wool stairs uphill by the Common sometimes takes a bit longer, and we tell you what to expect.
Can you fit the clean around the parking hours by the station?
Yes. Zone PL only operates from 9.30am to 11am on weekdays, so we either start after 11, when the restriction ends, or come earlier and ask you for a visitor voucher for the first part of the morning. On a Saturday the station zone does not run at all, which makes weekend slots in those streets the easiest of the week.
I rent my flat on the Glyndon estate. Can I book you myself?
Yes. You can book a clean for your own flat, and we deal with you directly from the quote to the receipt. Tell us the block and floor when you book, and whether the lift is working. A two-bed flat with its living room is one of our quickest jobs, and you get a dated receipt if your landlord or housing officer asks for one.
Every clean comes with our re-clean guarantee: if a treated area is not right, we come back and put it right at no charge. We are fully insured and DBS-checked, and we have been cleaning carpets across Plumstead and the rest of Greenwich since 2009.
