Finchley Road Removals

Finchley Road removals start with where the van can stop

Planning removals in Finchley Road means knowing which stretch you are on. This page covers the Camden section, from just north of the Swiss Cottage junction up towards the borough boundary near Child’s Hill, along with the streets that feed into it on both sides. In this stretch, house numbers run odd on the west side and even on the east, and that split matters more than it sounds. We do not plan a carry across the A41, so your side of the road decides which side street the crew can use.

The Victoria County History of Hampstead records that the road was driven through the middle of the Maryon Wilson demesne between 1826 and 1835, and that this turned private farmland into building land. What was built along it, in stages over the following century, is the reason a move here can mean four quite different jobs within a few hundred metres.

The frontage: flats over shops and 1930s blocks

From the 1880s, houses and shops spread north from Swiss Cottage. Between 1893 and 1897 the builders E. H. and H. T. Cave put up most of the 38 houses and blocks of flats and 16 shops added to the road in those years, and by 1913 the east side was almost complete while the west side, mostly shops, had reached beyond Lymington Road. Plenty of those upper floors are homes today. The way in is often a narrow door between two shopfronts and one straight stair, with shoppers on the pavement outside and the kerb painted red. Our advice on what changes when your flat sits over a shop applies on almost every parade here, and we stage boxes inside the street door so the time on the pavement stays short.

The purpose-built blocks came between the wars. Palace Court went up in 1926 south of Frognal Lane, Bracknell Gate in 1933 and Frognal Court, at number 160, in 1934. On the west side, numbers 341 to 359 and Dunrobin Court existed by 1930, and the county history suggests Mandeville and Hillside Courts followed in 1934. Further south, numbers 191 to 217 were rebuilt between 1934 and 1938 for the John Barnes store with St John’s Court above it, the block that now sits over Waitrose. In buildings like these we ask three things: is there a rear service road or residents’ car park, does the managing agent want the lift booked and protected, and will a wardrobe fit in a lift car of that age. If the answer to the last one is no, it is a stair carry, and our checklist for settling in to a managed block sets out what to ask before the date is fixed.

West of the road: the South Hampstead grid

Behind the western frontage lies the South Hampstead Conservation Area, called the Swiss Cottage Conservation Area until February 2011. Camden’s appraisal describes building moving west from Finchley Road and south from the railway: six houses in Canfield Gardens in 1881, thirty more in 1885 and 1886, then mansion flats in 1886 and 1889. Broadhurst Gardens gained 116 houses between 1882 and 1894. East of Fairhazel Gardens the appraisal notes tighter terraces and mansion blocks of three and four storeys, rising to five on Canfield Gardens.

Most of these houses are no longer single homes. A 2008 to 2009 survey counted about 3,850 properties in roughly 1,000 residential buildings, about 70% of them flats. So the usual South Hampstead job is a converted upper floor with a shared hall, or a basement created later with a lightwell and an outdoor stair. The same survey found 43% of front gardens paved over and 23% of boundary walls gone. A surviving garden path with a low wall and steps means a slower trolley run than a paved forecourt, so we look at the street view before we allow the time.

East of the road: Frognal and the rising ground

On the east side the ground starts to climb, and the homes were larger from the outset. The old road called Frognal had been extended south to meet Finchley Road by about 1880, and the large Queen Anne-style pairs at numbers 2 to 16 went up from 1889 to 1891. Heath Drive was laid out from the main road to Redington Road, with houses built there from 1897 to 1907. Some of these are still whole family houses, and others have been split into a few large flats. Either way they take more packing, a bigger vehicle and a crew that expects front steps. Our packing team usually goes in a day ahead on a house of this size, and big single pieces get measured against the turn of the stair at the survey.

Beside the railway: Lithos Road to Alvanley Gardens

North of the Underground tracks, the west side is cut up by three railway lines, and the streets are squeezed between them. Lithos Road had 20 houses by 1887 and gained Norfolk Mansions in the late 1970s, when the red-brick terraces of Dresden Close and Wedgwood Walk were also built south of Lymington Road. Lymington Road itself saw no building until 1899, and about 15 houses went up in Alvanley Gardens between 1922 and 1927. These short roads can be awkward for a large lorry to enter and turn in, so a Luton is often the better choice, even where the load would fit something longer.

The land between Finchley Road and West Hampstead, around the O2 Centre, is the next big change. Trade press reported in August 2026 that Camden had approved Landsec’s revised plan for the 14-acre site, with up to 1,800 homes overall and 651 in the first phase, delivered over 10 to 15 years with the shopping centre demolished last. We have not seen a published start date for the work. If your move falls after building begins, the first thing we will check is any change to access and loading on the roads around the site.