c.1880–1930
Moving out of a London mansion flat
Red-brick blocks with porters, service lifts and rules that predate the lift.
The mansion block is one of London’s distinctive property types and one of its most particular to move out of. Built between the 1880s and the 1930s as speculative apartment housing for the professional middle class, they run from Marylebone and Maida Vale across to Kensington, Chelsea, Battersea and Putney.
They share a set of features that matter enormously on a moving day: a managed entrance with a porter, a passenger lift that is usually too small, sometimes a separate service lift, and a set of house rules written by a residents’ management company rather than a council.
None of that is difficult. All of it has to be arranged in advance, and almost none of it can be sorted out on the morning.
The lift is the whole job
Mansion-block passenger lifts are period installations, often original in character even where the mechanism has been replaced. They are frequently too small for a double mattress, a three-seat sofa or a wardrobe, and the internal height rules out anything tall going in diagonally.
Where a service lift exists it is usually larger, and it is usually the one you are required to use. It needs booking, often days ahead and within set hours — commonly mid-morning to mid-afternoon so that residents are not disturbed at either end of the day.
Where no lift will take an item, the stairs are the answer, and mansion-block stairwells are generous but turn tightly around a central well. We measure the turn rather than the flight, because the turn is what stops furniture.
Most blocks require the managing agent to be notified, many require proof of public liability cover before a crew is admitted, and almost all require communal areas to be protected. We deal with the agent directly so this is settled before the vehicle arrives.
Other kinds of building
Next step
Moving out of one of these?
Send us the address, the floor, and a photograph of the staircase or the lift. We will tell you what the building allows before we talk about anything else.