Oven cleaning around Victoria Park, E9, from £77 with London Oven Cleaners. You look inside the heated, rebuilt oven, and anything not right is cleaned again before we go.
The White Lodge, at the northern tip of Victoria Park, is older than the park: it was probably built for a market gardener under an agreement of 1837, a few years before James Pennethorne began laying the park out in 1842.
Terraces on the Hackney side of the park
Tower Hamlets runs the park, but the houses along its northern edge are in Hackney. The Crown laid out the roads round the park at the same time as the park itself and hoped for villas on the Regent's Park model. Hackney's 2012 appraisal of the Victoria Park conservation area says the early villa plots found no takers, and the north side filled slowly with terraces for middle-class families.
At the east end of Victoria Park Road, once called Wick Lane, the north side was built up between the early 1860s and 1870, mostly in Italianate houses of three storeys over a basement. Just outside the park's north-east corner, near Molesworth Gate, Henry Robert Allen built 26 of the 28 houses in Cadogan Terrace between 1868 and 1872: two storeys over a deep basement, with paired front doors up flights of steps. The curving terraces of Gore Road, further west, followed in the 1870s.
In a house with a basement the kitchen is often on the lower floor. The method stays the same. Racks, trays and side runners come out and are soaked and cleaned separately; the cavity, fan cover and door glass are degreased by hand indoors, over dust sheets, and the door is split where its design allows.
Houses split into flats along Victoria Park Road
The same appraisal records that many large Victorian houses on Lauriston Road, Southborough Road and Victoria Park Road became flats after the war, while most of the houses in Gore Road and Meynell Crescent are still family homes. A large part of the land north of the park was Crown estate, one of its main London holdings, until ownership passed to Peabody in 2011. The whole conservation area lies in what is generally called South Hackney, with its shops round the Lauriston Road roundabout, now sold by estate agents as Victoria Park Village.
The 2021 Census shows the mix in Victoria ward, which takes in Gore Road and the Lauriston Road end of the park. Of its roughly 5,200 households, 13.0% lived in part of a converted or shared house, 17.4% in a terraced house and 56.0% in a purpose-built block of flats. Social renting was the largest tenure at 47.2%; 26.8% rented privately and 23.8% owned.
A flat on one floor of an old house usually has a small kitchen with a built-in single or a slim freestanding cooker. A whole house facing the park has more room, and is more likely to hold a 90cm range or a built-in double.
- 90cm range
- A freestanding cooker half as wide again as a standard 60cm one, usually with two oven cavities next to each other. Allow two to three hours; the price is £143.
- Built-in double
- Two cavities stacked in a tall housing unit, the upper one smaller and usually doubling as the grill. About two hours, at £110.
There is more detail on range cooker cleaning, including the hob and the hood above it.
Oven cleaning prices near Victoria Park
| Oven or appliance | Fixed price |
|---|---|
| Single ovenBuilt-in single: cavity, racks, door glass and seals. | £77 |
| Double ovenBoth cavities and doors, every rack soaked and cleaned. | £110 |
| Single wide ovenOne oven, wider than the standard 60cm. | £114 |
| Range cooker, 90cmThe whole cooker: every oven and the grill. | £143 |
| Range cooker, 100cm | £167 |
| Range hob or range hoodThe wide hob on a range, or the hood above it. | £48 |
| AGA, two-ovenCooled properly, cleaned, re-lit and checked. | £143 |
| AGA, four-oven | £187 |
| HobCeramic £23, gas £28. | £23–28 |
| Extractor hood | £28 |
| Microwave | £22 |
| Single oven, hob and extractorThe three together, one visit. | £117 |
| Double oven, hob and extractorThe three together, one visit. | £143 |
The price is set by the appliance alone, so a single, a double, a range and an AGA each have one figure. It is agreed on the phone before the visit, and a Saturday costs the same as a Tuesday.
Parking zones P, Q and K along the park's north edge
Three Hackney parking zones cover these streets. On the council's zone map, Gore Road is in zone P (Victoria Park Village), Homer Road and the east end of Victoria Park Road are in zone Q (Well Street), and the Hackney part of Cadogan Terrace is in zone K (Hackney Wick). The council's list of zone hours gives all three as 8.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday.
Zones Q and K run longer on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park event days: 8.30am to 8.30pm on weekdays, and midday to 6pm at weekends and on bank holidays. On an ordinary Saturday none of the three is controlled. If you live in Q or K and the visit falls on an event weekend, mention it when you book.
Questions from homes by Victoria Park
My kitchen is in the basement. Is that a problem?
No. Mention the steps when you ring, so the visit is timed properly.
Our flat is in a converted house on Victoria Park Road. Can the letting agent pay?
Yes. The invoice can go to the agency, photos can be taken for the checkout file, and keys for an empty flat can be collected by arrangement.
Can the hob and the extractor be done at the same visit?
Yes. A gas hob is £28, a ceramic hob £23 and an extractor hood £28, on top of the oven price. On a range cooker the hob or the hood is £48.
What do you need on the day?
A working socket, the oven cool when we arrive, and somewhere for the team to park.
Reviews from our rounds
Brilliant clean, my oven looks like brand new. A 5 star clean.
Once again a great job guys, I will see you in a couple of months.
Nice hardworking lads that always do a good job. We used them for our old flat when moving out and for the new one now, both jobs were done very professionally. My wife is very impressed with the results and would recommend them to friends and family.
Victoria Park on the map
Nearby areas we cover
South Hackney · Hackney Wick · Bromley-by-Bow · Fish Island · Homerton · Old Ford
Other Hackney areas we cover
Hackney Central Clapton Clapton Park London Fields Hackney Downs Haggerston Shacklewell Upper Clapton Rectory Road Dalston Kingsland Stoke Newington Central De Beauvoir Town Hoxton Newington Green Shoreditch Old Street Stoke Newington Every Hackney area
Book the Victoria Park slot on 020 8077 5225, seven days a week.