Removals in West Hampstead

West Hampstead house removals: from a railway hamlet to a district of flats

Until the 1870s this was West End, a small hamlet where West End Lane, Mill Lane and Fortune Green Road met at a green. In 1762 it had 19 houses, 18 cottages and two inns. Then three railway lines were cut across West End Lane south of the village: the Hampstead Junction line by 1857, the Midland in 1868 and the Metropolitan and St John’s Wood in 1879, which opened a station on the lane called West Hampstead. The Victoria County History of Hampstead records that the railway companies bought large parts of the old estates and that what was left was sold off in pieces to land companies and speculative builders. The busiest building came in the fifteen years after 1879.

That history still decides a moving day, and it is why our house removals West Hampstead quotes are built street by street rather than by bedroom count. The roads were laid out between and around the railway cuttings, which is why many of them are short and some still curve along the line of an old field boundary. The houses went up quickly, often by small local builders working a few plots at a time, and after the Second World War the main trend was to convert them into flats. In practice that means most of our West Hampstead jobs start on an upper floor, share a front door with neighbours, and go down a stair that was built for one family.

The terraces west of West End Lane

Between 1882 and 1894 some 346 houses were built in Sumatra, Solent, Holmdale, Glenbrook, Pandora and Narcissus roads, on land between the lane and the railway. Further north, Agamemnon, Ajax, Ulysses and Achilles roads were filled with about 155 lower middle-class terraces between 1886 and 1896, and Hillfield Road had some 88 houses by 1890. Camden’s conservation-area appraisal for West End Green describes the drop in scale as the ground falls west from the lane: four- and five-storey buildings on West End Lane itself, then three-storey terraces, then two-storey Victorian houses on a more regular grid.

A three-storey terrace converted into two or three flats is one of the most common jobs we see here. The top flat often sits under the roof with a narrow final flight, and a sofa or a wardrobe that came up before the conversion may not go down the same way. We measure the turn of the stair and the width of the shared hall at the survey, and our guide to checking a sofa against a narrow stair covers the three measurements that matter. Where something will not pass, we take it apart, or plan a lift through a window with the right equipment and the freeholder’s agreement.

Mansion blocks on West End Lane, Cannon Hill and Lyncroft Gardens

Mansion flats are the other half of West Hampstead. Sandwell and Victoria mansions went up on West End Lane and Sumatra Road in 1893 and 1894, Welbeck Mansions in 1897 on the site of the old foundry, and Buckingham, Avenue and Marlborough mansions between 1896 and 1900 in the triangle where Cannon Hill meets Finchley Road. Lyncroft Gardens has two-storey houses on basements along one side and mansion blocks along the other, and between 1922 and 1927 seventeen more blocks were built along Mill Lane, Aldred Road, Hillfield Road and Fortune Green Road, the development known as Cholmley Gardens.

In a mansion block the questions are the lift, if there is one, the porter or managing agent, and how far the van can get from the entrance. Blocks of this age vary a great deal: some have a lift added later, some only a common stair, and some agents want notice and floor protection before a move. Our notes on mansion blocks and managed buildings list what to ask the agent, and if your flat is on an upper floor without a lift, our advice on stairs-only flats explains how we staff the carry.

Flats above the shops, and the houses to the east

West End Lane is the shopping street, and Camden’s appraisal notes that most of the mansion blocks and flats above the shops appear to be lived in. These flats are often reached by their own street door beside the shop and a single stair. Moving out of one of these usually means loading on a busy road with bus stops and bays, so we keep the van there for as short a time as possible and stage the furniture inside the door first. Our guide to moving from a flat over a shop covers the shared entrance and the timing.

East of the lane, towards the cricket ground, the picture changes. Lymington Road, Fawley Road, Honeybourne Road and Crediton Hill were laid out in about 1897 and were mostly finished by 1913, with large semi-detached houses on Lymington and Fawley roads, detached houses on Crediton Hill, and the Yale and Harvard Courts mansion blocks on Honeybourne Road. Many of these are still whole houses, so the job is a family move with a loft, a garden shed and furniture to wrap, and the stone garden walls and brick gate piers decide how close the trolley gets to the door.

If you would rather not pack, our packing team can box the kitchen and the books the day before. If your sale and purchase do not line up, we can hold everything in a sealed storage room until the new keys are ready, and for a few pieces between two NW6 flats our man and van service is usually the cheaper choice.