Removals in Chancery Lane, on both sides of the City boundary

Removals Chancery Lane: one street, three councils

The City of London’s own Chancery Lane conservation area appraisal sets out the geography plainly. Only the east side of the lane is in the City. The west side belongs to Camden for roughly the northern two-thirds, from High Holborn past Lincoln’s Inn, and to Westminster for the rest of the way down to Fleet Street. The line has not always been there: it was moved in April 1994, when parts of Camden and Westminster were transferred to the City. The appraisal also notes that the lane bends slightly as it runs south, and that both its carriageway and its pavements are narrower than those on High Holborn.

For a removal, that means three sets of parking rules within a few metres of each other. A flat on the east side, or anywhere on Furnival Street, Cursitor Street, Breams Buildings or Fetter Lane, is a City job. An office across the road may be a Camden or a Westminster job. We confirm it from the street number before we quote, because the notice period, the fee and the way the bay is signed all differ, and booking with the wrong council simply means no bay on the day.

What people move out of here

Chancery Lane is mainly offices and institutions. The appraisal puts typical building heights at five to eight storeys, mostly commercial and institutional, with lower, older buildings mixed in. Homes are scattered through that: flats on the upper floors of mixed buildings, rooms let in old chambers, and a few houses of a genuinely domestic scale. Nos. 14–16 Took’s Court were built around 1720 as chambers mixing living and working space, and Nos. 32 and 33 Furnival Street are late 17th-century houses with their doorcases and railings still in place. Buildings of that age have narrow, turning stairs, so we look at the stair before we look at the furniture. If the sofa came in through a window, it will probably have to leave the same way, and our guide to furniture that will not fit through the door explains what we do about it.

In the bigger blocks, a flat removal is usually decided by the managing agent rather than the street. Many ask for the crew’s names, a copy of the insurance certificate and a booked lift slot, and some only allow moves at set times. Send us their move-in or move-out rules when you have them and we plan the day around them. Where there is no lift at all, the crew size goes up with the number of flights, as our page on moving a flat with no lift describes.

Courts, passages and setts

The street pattern behind the lane is older than most of the buildings on it. The appraisal traces Southampton Buildings, Furnival Street, Cursitor Street and Took’s Court back to the 1676 map of London, and some addresses are reached through a passage rather than from the road. Quality Court is entered from Chancery Lane through an arched passage and is paved in York stone. Took’s Court has a granite-sett carriageway with raised York stone footways and granite kerbs. Barnard’s Inn and Dyers Buildings are entered from Holborn through passageways. Rolls Passage is narrow too. At addresses like these, the van usually waits on the nearest street and the crew carries through, so we measure the distance and the width of the passage and set the crew and the time from that.

Chambers, small firms and the Maughan Library

Much of the work here is commercial: a set of chambers changing floors, a small practice moving to Fetter Lane, or files going into storage while a building is refitted. For office removals we usually work on a Saturday or a Sunday, number every crate to a floor plan and keep the paper files in the order you filed them, so the room works on Monday. Our notes on planning an office move in London cover the timetable. Computers and phones are disconnected, labelled and packed by our IT relocation team.

The former Public Record Office on the east side became King’s College London’s Maughan Library after a conversion between 2001 and 2003, so students are part of the picture too. A student move is usually boxes, books and a bike rather than furniture, which suits a man and van booked by the hour.

Chancery Lane removal prices

Guide prices for a move within London. The parking bay, any council fee and the Congestion Charge are added to your quote as fixed items, not on the day.

Indicative prices only. A move from a court reached on foot, or from a top floor with no lift, needs more crew and costs more. Your fixed quote says why.

Neighbouring areas

The areas that border Chancery Lane each have their own page. Moves between them are short in distance and long in planning, because many of them cross a council boundary.