Dulwich Removals, SE21

Removals Dulwich: council road or Estate road?

Edward Alleyn bought the manor of Dulwich in 1605 and founded his College of God’s Gift in 1619. Southwark’s appraisal of the Dulwich Village conservation area explains that the foundation then controlled how the land was built on for centuries, and the charity that inherited it, the Dulwich Estate, still owns a good deal of SE21 today. For a removal that history turns into a practical question we ask on every call: is the road outside your house a public road run by Southwark, or a private road run by the Estate?

Southwark’s roads. Dulwich Village itself, Calton Avenue, Court Lane, Turney Road, Dekker Road and Gilkes Crescent all appear in Southwark’s own traffic orders for the village, which makes them council highway. Parking on them is managed by Southwark, so if we need a space held for the van, Southwark is who we ask and Southwark’s fees apply.

The Estate’s roads. The Dulwich Estate publishes a list of the private roads it owns and maintains. In SE21 it includes the private section of College Road from the South Circular to Fountain Drive, Pond Mead off Village Way, Court Lane Gardens, Great Brownings and Frank Dixon Way off College Road, Alleyn Crescent, Loggetts and Morkyn’s Walk off Alleyn Park, Rycotes Mead off Dulwich Common, Burbage Lane, Lings Coppice, Little Bornes, Woodyard Lane and Woodhall Drive. Some entries are only a few house numbers on an otherwise public road, such as 1–9 Red Post Hill and 50–58 Townley Road, so the number matters as much as the street. On a private road a council bay suspension is not the tool, because the council does not run the kerb. The Estate’s own page says parking on College Road is restricted by double yellow lines and enforced by clamping, and that there are width restrictors where Hunts Slip Road meets Bowen Drive, for vehicles crossing the railway bridge. If you are moving on or off one of these roads, we plan around the drive or forecourt and check with the Estate before we send a large vehicle.

The toll gate. College Road also carries the toll gate. The Estate describes it as the last remaining toll gate in London and says it helps control the volume of traffic and heavy goods vehicles on that section of road. At the time of writing the standard single toll is £1.20, payment is cashless, and the gate charges Monday to Friday 07:00 to 21:30, Saturday 08:00 to 18:00 and Sundays and public holidays 09:00 to 17:00; outside those hours the road is free. If your house is reached through the gate, the toll goes into the fixed price and we tell you which way the van will come.

House removals Dulwich: from village cottages to College Road villas

Southwark’s appraisal describes Dulwich as buildings from the mid 18th century to the present, ranging from grand houses to humble terraces, with most of them set in generous front and rear gardens. For us that range means the crew size, the vehicle and the length of the day change a lot from one street to the next, so we ask for the exact address before we give a figure.

The village street. Most of the buildings on Dulwich Village between the burial ground and the Old College are listed. On the west side there are early 19th century pairs at 50–52 and 60–62 and a row of 18th and early 19th century cottages and shops at 70–82; on the east side, Georgian townhouses such as No. 57 of 1797 and the group at 97 and 101–105, whose gardens run back towards Dulwich Park. Listed interiors often mean narrow original staircases, old banisters and doorways that are not quite square, so we protect walls and handrails as well as furniture. Our notes on moving into or out of a listed building set out what we cover.

College Road, Gallery Road and Dulwich Common. These are the large villas, many of them listed and all set well back from the road in big private gardens. The walk from the gate to the front door can be long, there is often a coach house or garden building to empty as well, and a five or six-bedroom house with a full loft is a long day for a large crew. On Dulwich Common, which is part of the South Circular, the appraisal notes that heavy traffic dominates, so we load from the drive where there is one and keep the van off the main road. Near the toll gate, the small 18th and early 19th century houses known as Pond Cottages, on another of the Estate’s private roads, are the opposite job: low ceilings, tight stairs and very little room to turn a sofa.

Pickwick, Aysgarth, Boxall and Burbage Roads. Pickwick and Aysgarth Roads were built soon after the Greyhound Inn, which stood on their site, was demolished in 1898. Of the four, Boxall Road has the smallest houses and gardens, Aysgarth and Pickwick Roads are a step up, and Burbage Road has the larger Edwardian and Arts and Crafts houses. The streets curve gently, which looks good and means the van is often parked slightly round the bend from the door.

Court Lane, Calton Avenue and the streets to Lordship Lane. Court Lane is mostly semi-detached pairs from the late Victorian, Edwardian and inter-war years, with post-war houses where bombs fell. Calton Avenue, Dovercourt Road, Eynella Road and Beauval Road are turn-of-the-century terraces and large semis with bays and gables. Some have had dormers added at roof level, which usually means a converted loft, a third floor of furniture and a steep top flight. Court Lane Gardens is a row of large Edwardian houses behind a shared private garden, on one of the Estate’s private roads.

The smaller homes. Dekker Road was built in 1904 to designs by Charles E. Barry as cottages and maisonettes on two levels, to replace older insanitary cottages, and the Dulwich Cottages Company built cottages in the late 1870s, some of which survive on Turney Road, Boxall Road and the south end of Calton Avenue. A maisonette move here is a straightforward half or full day, priced on the first or second-floor carry.

Pianos, pictures and antiques

Southwark’s appraisal notes that the large houses here have mostly stayed single-family homes rather than being split into flats, and a survey of one often turns up an upright or grand piano, framed pictures, long-case clocks and pieces that were bought for the house and have never left it. Pictures are wrapped and packed flat in their own cartons; clocks are taken down in the way the owner or their restorer prefers; pianos go out on boards and a piano trolley. Our guides to moving antiques and artwork and how a piano is moved explain the method, and the price includes the extra people a heavy piece needs.

If you are downsizing from a family house on Court Lane or College Road to a flat, part of the contents often goes to children or into storage rather than to the new address. Our guide to moving from a family house into a smaller flat covers how to decide what goes where, and we can split one load across two addresses and a store on the same day.

Dulwich removals: price guide

Guide figures for a typical SE21 move, before we have seen the stairs, the loft or the road outside:

Every Dulwich quote is fixed in writing once we know the address, whether the road is council or Estate, the floors and the carry.

Neighbouring areas and the rest of SE21

Over the ridge at St Barnabas is East Dulwich, and past the North Dulwich viaduct the streets run on into Herne Hill. These parts of Dulwich do not have a page of their own and are all covered by the same team: