Removals in Chigwell

House removals Chigwell: three wards, three kinds of move

Chigwell Parish Council's 2018 draft neighbourhood plan describes the parish as the line where London stops and the Green Belt starts, and splits it into three wards. Using 2011 figures, it counts 4,160 people in 1,484 homes in Chigwell Village, about 6,620 in roughly 2,500 homes in Grange Hill, and 2,270 in 912 homes in Chigwell Row. The plan itself never went to a referendum (the examiner found it did not meet the basic conditions), but its walk through the streets is the most detailed street-by-street description of the parish we have found.

The practical point is that the three wards ask for different vans and different crews. Grange Hill is the most suburban, with a London-style mix of semis, flats and an estate of terraces and blocks. The village is detached houses in large plots wrapped around a historic core. Chigwell Row is a small rural settlement with lanes, a 1960s block of private flats and homes facing open fields. When you ask for a quote, the first thing we want is the street name, because it tells us more than the postcode does.

Chigwell removals from the detached-house roads

The largest moves in IG7 come from the detached-house roads, and the draft plan lists them: the avenue of detached homes along Hainault Road heading towards Barkingside, Chigwell Rise and Lee Grove on the way to Buckhurst Hill, the Courtland Estate (Courtland Drive, Meadow Way, Parklands and Daleside Gardens) looking out over farmland, Forest Lane between Chigwell Road and Manor Road, and the larger houses in their own grounds along Manor Road up to the Hainault Road junction. On Tomswood Road, it notes, bungalows were replaced by much bigger detached houses in the twenty years before the plan was written.

A five- or six-bedroom house on one of these roads usually means the 7.5-tonne lorry, three or four crew and a full day, sometimes two. Gated driveways, double garages, garden rooms and lofts add volume that a room count never shows, so we ask for a video walk-round or a visit before quoting. If the drive is long enough to take the lorry, we use it; if the gates are narrow or the surface is gravel, we stop at the kerb and shuttle with trolleys. Our house removals crews take beds, wardrobes and garden furniture apart and rebuild them at the other end, and our packing services team can spend the day before wrapping glassware, pictures and the contents of a loft.

The village core around the King's Head

Epping Forest District Council's leaflet on the Chigwell Village Conservation Area describes the High Road as the backbone of the village and the old coaching route from London to Chipping Ongar, climbing north to its highest point near Vicarage Lane. The focal point is the junction of the High Road and Roding Lane, closed in by the King's Head (a 1620s timber-framed inn that Dickens used as the Maypole), St Mary's Church, Chigwell School, founded in 1629, and a cluster of listed cottages. North of the school the cottages sit close to the road with little or no front garden; beyond Vicarage Lane the houses are set back in large gardens.

For a move, that splits the conservation area in two. A cottage hard against the pavement on the western side of the High Road means the van stops outside the front door on a main road, so the loading has to be quick and well organised, with the crew working in a chain rather than walking each box out alone. A house set back behind a walled front garden needs a longer carry and protection on the path. The council's leaflet also notes that gates, walls and fences inside the conservation area need consent to remove, so we never plan a move around taking down a gate or a section of wall to get a sofa through.

Flats on Brook Parade and near the station

Chigwell station, on the Central line, opens onto Brook Parade, a post-war row of shops with flats above every unit. Facing and next to it are two newer blocks, Dolphin Court and Claremont House, and further along is Spanbrook, a 1950s block. Flats above shops usually mean a separate street door, a narrow stair and a van parked on a road that the shops also need for deliveries; our guide to what to settle before moving to or from a flat over a shop lists what to agree with the landlord beforehand. For the purpose-built blocks we check whether there is a lift, how big it is and whether it can be reserved, and our flat removals crews pad the lift car or the stairwell before anything is carried.

Grange Hill and the Limes Farm Estate

Grange Hill takes in the London end of the parish. Around Manor Road and its side roads (Lechmere, Broadhurst, Mount Pleasant) the draft plan finds detached and semi-detached houses and apartments, and newer flats near the Bald Hind. Next to Grange Hill station, also on the Central line, 92 homes were built on the former Jennikins Nursery site. Off Fencepiece Road is the Limes Farm Estate: around 750 homes in terraces and blocks of flats, laid out with large open spaces and a road system kept apart from the footpaths. The plan notes that the District Council owns the freehold.

That separation of roads and paths is the detail that changes a removal. On an estate built this way the van parks in a car park or service road and the crew walks the furniture along a footpath to the door, sometimes a long way, and sometimes up a communal stair. We ask for the block name and the nearest place a van can stop, plan for trolleys and an extra porter where the walk is long, and quote the time honestly. If the flat has no lift, read our advice on carrying a whole flat down the stairs when there is no lift; for smaller loads, our man and van service is usually the cheaper option.

Chigwell Row, The Bowls and the lanes

Chigwell Row is a separate village surrounded by fields, farms and Hainault Forest, reached along Lambourne Road from Grange Hill or by Pudding Lane and Gravel Lane from the village. The parish council's draft describes Pudding Lane as hard going in winter and Gravel Lane as the better, though still accident-prone, way through. On Vicarage Lane is The Bowls, a 1960s development of around 90 privately owned flats, and the village itself has grown through the Woolhampton Estate and newer homes on the old Retreat pub site. For a house on one of the lanes we check the turning space before we send the lorry, and in winter we plan the route in on Lambourne Road or Gravel Lane rather than Pudding Lane.

If you are leaving a family house in Chigwell Row for a flat nearer the shops or the Underground, our guide to downsizing to a smaller flat covers deciding what goes and what stays, and storage can hold the furniture that does not fit while you decide.

Office removals Chigwell: practices, shops and small firms

Commercial moves in the parish are usually small: a shop or salon on Brook Parade, a dental or medical practice, an estate agent, or a small firm with a handful of desks. We move them in the evening or at the weekend so the doors open as normal the next day, crate and label everything by room, and bring our IT relocation team if the computers and network need taking down and setting up again. Our office removals service starts with an inventory and the building's access times, so the quote covers everything on the day.

Getting out of Chigwell: the Roding, the M11 and the ULEZ

The draft plan points out that anyone leaving Chigwell westwards has to cross both the River Roding and the M11, by Chigwell Road, Roding Lane or Chigwell Lane, and that a closure on any one of them causes long delays. It also notes the queues on Manor Road, which carries most of the traffic from Repton Park, the 700-home development on the old Claybury hospital site just over the boundary. We check for roadworks on those routes before every Chigwell job and set the start time to miss the worst of it. Epping Forest district is outside the ULEZ, but most moves from here end in London, so the van enters the zone on the way; our guide to ULEZ and Congestion Charge rules for removal vans explains what applies, and whatever it is sits inside your fixed price.