Steel staircases in Caterham and Oxted

Steel staircase work in Caterham and Whyteleafe

Caterham is two parishes in one dry valley on the Downs. Caterham on the Hill has the Victorian flint and red brick High Street with flats above the shops, the large Edwardian detached houses of Queen's Park Road in white render and red tile, and the high-density cul-de-sacs of West Caterham on the Hill around the old barracks layout. Harestone Valley, south of Caterham Valley, has large Victorian and Edwardian houses on wooded plots among modern infill.

Flats over the High Street shops are where fire escape stairs and balconies come up. A Queen's Park Road house with a first-floor extension may want an external stair to the garden behind the hedge or low brick wall the design codes ask for. On the Whyteleafe valley sides, among the 1930s to 1950s infill on Portley Wood Road, Salmons Lane and Church Road, the ground falls away and a garden staircase with a balustrade makes it usable.

Oxted, Limpsfield and the villages around them

Oxted grew in two stages: Old Oxted is a medieval crossroads village with 15th and 16th century timber-framed buildings on its High Street, and the town centre went up after the railway arrived in 1884 with mock-Tudor stucco frontages, Station Road West among them. Hurst Green and Holland are almost wholly residential. Limpsfield, a separate parish joined to Oxted, is predominantly detached, with medieval cottages, Georgian village houses and Arts and Crafts homes in the village.

On the small Victorian and Edwardian plots of Snatts Hill and Westerham Road a spiral stair beside a rear extension saves the width a straight flight would take. The detached houses on large plots along the north side of Westerham Road have room for a straight external stair to a first-floor room. In Limpsfield village and Old Oxted the work is smaller: a Juliet balcony with no platform, or railings scaled to a timber-framed frontage, and permission wherever the building is listed.

Planning in Tandridge: Green Belt, conservation areas and listed buildings

Tandridge District Council, based in Oxted, is the planning authority until 31 March 2027, when its functions pass to East Surrey Council. Ninety-four per cent of the district is Green Belt, where limited extension of an existing house may be acceptable, and the Surrey Hills National Landscape takes in Woldingham, Chaldon and north Limpsfield. Balconies and raised platforms are excluded from permitted development, so an external staircase or raised terrace normally needs a householder application; a Juliet balcony with no platform generally does not.

The conservation areas here are Caterham Barracks, Chaldon, Old Oxted, Station Road West, Broadham Green and Spring Lane, Limpsfield Village, Godstone Church Town and Godstone The Green: inside them minor works exempt elsewhere need consent, roof and side extensions lose permitted development, and tree work needs six weeks' notice. Any railing, gate or wall on one of Limpsfield's 89 listed buildings needs permission. The council's myHouse map shows the constraints on any address.

Access, ground and finishes on site

Caterham sits below Gravelly Hill at 236 m and White Hill at 233 m, and the design codes sort Whyteleafe into valley side and valley bottom, so a garden staircase manages a change in level. Harestone Valley has dense tree cover and parking on plot: the drive is where we unload and the flights go round the trees. Valley-bottom flats built between the A22 Godstone Road and the railway leave little room, so a fire escape stair arrives in sections carried through and bolted together.

Mild steel goes out hot-dip galvanised, then powder coated to a RAL colour to sit with the white render and red tile of Queen's Park Road, the High Street's flint and brick, the hanging tiles of Whyteleafe or the stucco of Station Road West. On Queen's Park Road, where the design codes want hedges and low brick walls rather than hard frontages, a new gate is kept low and hung in the existing wall.

How we get to you from Westerham Hill

Our workshop at 4 Fort Cottages is at the top of Westerham Hill on the A233 and everything on this page lies to the west. Limpsfield is 4.4 miles and about ten minutes away, Oxted 4.8 miles and twelve, and Godstone, at the A22 and A25 crossroads just south of M25 junction 6, 7.8 miles and sixteen. Whyteleafe is 8.5 miles and seventeen minutes, and Caterham Valley and Caterham on the Hill are both 9.3 miles and about nineteen. Those Caterham figures are almost exactly the 6.8 miles to Warlingham plus 2.5 miles on to Caterham on the Hill or 1.7 to Whyteleafe, which tells you which way the van goes. All are free-flow times and none allows for traffic on the A22, A25, M25 or Westerham Hill itself. From Warlingham, Oxted is 6.0 miles, Limpsfield 5.9 and Godstone 4.8, so every town named here is inside the ten miles of Warlingham we cover as standard.

Places we cover around Caterham and Oxted

In CR3 we cover Caterham on the Hill, from the High Street and Queen's Park to the former barracks now called Caterham Village, and Caterham Valley from Church Walk and the station along Harestone Valley Road to Caterham School, together with Whyteleafe and its three stations on the Godstone Road, the scattered Green Belt parish of Chaldon to the west and Woldingham up on the Downs. In RH8 we cover Oxted from Master Park and Station Road West to Old Oxted, Hurst Green, Holland and the mill at Broadham Green and Spring Lane, then Limpsfield, Limpsfield Chart, Titsey between Limpsfield and Warlingham, and Tandridge village on the Greensand Ridge. Godstone and South Godstone in RH9 and Bletchingley west of Godstone complete the patch, with Warlingham, Chelsham and Farleigh in CR6 alongside and Kenley over the Croydon border. For the same houses we also make balustrades, balconies, gates and railings, most often to match a staircase.

Questions from Caterham and Oxted customers