Six homes in ten in this part of Shirley were built between the wars, and more than three-quarters are semis or detached houses with a staircase, a landing and three or four bedrooms. Above them, on the higher ground of Upper Shirley, Richard Alwen’s brick tower mill has stood since 1854. London Carpet Cleaning covers all of Shirley, CR0, from £36 a room, and carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours.
Shirley before and after the 1930s
The name goes back to 1314 and probably means “shire clearing”, from Shirley’s place by the old Kent and Surrey border. It stayed a hamlet for centuries. Shirley House, a mansion of 1721, became the Shirley Park Hotel in 1912, and the Whitgift Foundation bought it in 1965 for the new Trinity School; St John’s Church dates from 1856. Then, in the 1930s, house building took off and covered the farmland with suburban semis. That is still the Shirley most people live in: the streets off Wickham Road and around Spring Park Road, with good-sized rooms and long back gardens. Wickham Road is the spine, with the library, the shops and two pubs, The Crown and the Shirley Inn.
Upper Shirley is different. It sits on higher ground around the junction of Upper Shirley Road and Oaks Road, next to the Shirley Park and Addington golf courses, and the houses are larger, many of them detached. The windmill stands just off Upper Shirley Road: a five-storey brick tower mill built by Richard Alwen after the family’s post mill burned down in October 1854, listed at Grade II and restored to working order.
Behind it rise Addington Hills, 130 acres of woodland on a gravel bed with London’s largest area of heathland at the centre and a viewpoint that looks across Croydon to Docklands. Spring Park Wood runs along the eastern edge. With the heath, the woods and two golf courses this close, a lot of the outdoors comes indoors on shoes and paws.
How many Shirley homes are 1930s houses?
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Houses of any kind | 86.6% |
| Semi-detached houses | 51.6% |
| Built 1919 to 1944 | 59.6% |
| Built 1945 to 1972 | 18.6% |
| Three-bedroom homes | 40.3% |
| Owned, outright or with a mortgage | 86.1% |
| Rented privately | 10.7% |
A clear majority. The ONS calls this neighbourhood Shirley West, and 59.6% of its homes went up between 1919 and 1944, with another 18.6% added in the post-war decades. Houses make up 86.6% of homes; just over half are semis (51.6%) and a quarter detached (25.6%). Flats are only 13.4%, so almost every booking includes a full staircase and a landing.
These are big family homes. Three bedrooms is the most common size (40.3%), and 38.9% have four or more. A Shirley semi with three bedrooms, a knocked-through lounge and one staircase is £210 all in. Nearly everyone owns: 86.1% of homes, half of them (49.8%) with no mortgage left, and only 10.7% are let privately. Just 1.0% of homes have no central heating, so with a radiator on low the carpet is dry by the afternoon even in midwinter.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Croydon 026) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Grit from the heath, wool on the stairs
The jobs here follow the houses. In the 1930s semis it is stairs and landings first, the beige and grey wool carpet that picks up years of coffee and muddy footprints on the way to a home office or a child’s room. After that come family sofas that have taken felt tip and chocolate from grandchildren over half term. Higher up in Upper Shirley we see more wool twist and more real wool rugs, including old sheepskins gone matted and grey in front of a fireplace.
The ground plays a part. The paths over Addington Hills are sand and gravel, and that grit is sharp; carried in on boots and paws, it sits at the base of the pile and cuts the fibres every time someone steps on it. Golf-course mud and grass follow the same route, so the traffic lanes by the front door and at the foot of the stairs are usually the worst. Old wool that has been walked flat for twenty or thirty years will come up clean and much brighter, but where the pile has lost its spring it can stay crushed. We tell you on the day whether you are looking at dirt or at wear, before we start.
No permit bays, one red route
Shirley is easy for the van. None of Croydon’s controlled parking zones reaches its residential streets, most houses have a drive or a run of unrestricted road outside, and we bring everything to the door on the hose reel. On the narrower cul-de-sacs off Bridle Road we may pull up a few doors down, which makes no difference to the clean.
The one road to plan for is the A232. Shirley Road and Wickham Road carry it through the middle of the district, and the stretch from Sandilands to West Wickham is a TfL red route, where stopping on the red lines is banned. For a house on either road we use the drive if the car can move, or the nearest side street.
Inside, a four-bed house needs a little preparation: clear the landing and lift shoes off the stairs before we arrive.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Shirley?
Your price is fixed when you book, and there is no call-out fee. Shirley pays the same as Croydon’s town centre and every other London borough.
- Carpet cleaning, per bedroom, from £36
- Living room 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
Let us know the rooms and you will have a fixed price back straight away. Get a free quote, or phone 020 8077 8090.
Sheepskins and leather corner suites too
Carpets get our hot steam carpet cleaning, a deep extraction that pulls grit and old spills out of the pile and leaves it dry within 6 to 7 hours. Sofas and armchairs go through our upholstery cleaning, safe on the wool and cotton weaves and the leather corner suites we see out here. Wool and delicate pieces are cleaned in your home through our rug cleaning, and a photo of an old or silk one helps us say if it is safe on site. We cover the rest of Croydon too, and if you are on the far side we also look after neighbouring Monks Orchard and Forestdale.
Shirley customers often ask
Which parts of Shirley do you cover, from Wickham Road to the windmill?
All of it, on the same fixed prices. That runs across central Shirley along Wickham Road, up through Upper Shirley by the golf courses and the windmill, and out to the Spring Park and Bridle Road streets near the CR0 8 edge. Monks Orchard and the Shirley Oaks side are covered too, so there is no surcharge anywhere in the postcode.
Where will the van park when you visit?
Most Shirley homes have a driveway or a run of unrestricted road outside, so parking is rarely a problem and we bring everything to the door on the hose reel. There is no controlled parking zone across the residential streets here, unlike the town centre. The exception is a house on Wickham Road or Shirley Road, part of the A232 red route, where we use the drive or a side street.
Do you get pet and muddy footprint marks out?
Usually yes. With the golf courses, Spring Park Wood and Addington Hills on the doorstep, a lot of what we lift is mud and grass off boots and dogs, worked into the traffic lanes by the door. We pre-treat those lanes, agitate the pile and hot-rinse it, which shifts ground-in dirt and most pet marks. Set-in pet stains that have reached the underlay are the ones we treat but cannot always promise.
How long does dense wool carpet take to dry in Upper Shirley?
Carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours because the machine extracts most of the moisture on the pass, and a morning clean is dry by the evening. Dense wool in the bigger Upper Shirley houses holds a little more water and takes longer, especially in a cool room facing north, so we flag anything slow before we leave and suggest a window open a crack.
Can you clean a whole four-bedroom house in one visit?
Yes. Nearly four homes in ten here have four or more bedrooms. Each room is priced from the list, so a fourth bedroom or a second staircase simply adds its line, and a big house is still one booking. Tell us the room count when you book so we allow the time.
Does the sand off Addington Hills damage a carpet?
Over time, yes. Sand and fine gravel from the heath paths work down to the base of the pile, and every footstep grinds them against the fibres, which is what dulls a stair carpet long before it looks dirty. A good doormat and regular vacuuming slow it down. A hot-water extraction clean flushes the grit out from the base, which a vacuum cannot reach.
Every clean comes with our re-clean guarantee: if a mark comes back or an area is not right, we return and sort it at no charge. We are fully insured and DBS-checked, and we have cleaned homes across Shirley and the rest of Croydon since 2009.
