Hampshire, county-wide
Hampshire holds a wider spread of building stock than most English counties: Georgian townhouses in Winchester, dense Victorian terraces on Portsea Island, thatch and timber frame across the Forest, and some of the largest new estates in the south around Basingstoke. The era tells us more about your move than the county does.
Free survey, in person or by video. No figure before one.
What we move
A thatched cottage and a four-bed new-build can hold the same furniture and need almost nothing in common from a removals crew. Grouping by building rather than by service name means you can find your own property instead of guessing.
Pre-1900 and rural property, where the building and the approach both constrain the job.
Georgian, Victorian, thatch and timber
Winchester townhouses, Southampton and Portsmouth terraces, and the cottages across the Forest and the downland villages. Low doorways, uneven floors, tight winders, and often a conservation constraint on what can be parked where.
Lanes, tracks and gateways
Properties at the end of an unmade track or through a gateway built for a cart. The building is rarely the problem; getting a vehicle within carrying distance of it usually is.
Interwar to modern estate housing — the straightforward majority of Hampshire.
Interwar and postwar semis
The bulk of Hampshire housing: bay-fronted semis and postwar estates across Eastleigh, Fareham, Havant, Basingstoke and the city suburbs. Drives, side access, and lofts and garages nobody has counted.
Estates, flats and site rules
The large newer developments around Basingstoke, Andover, Whiteley and the city edges. Good access, narrow estate roads, and a management company with opinions about where a lorry may stand.
Jobs defined by the load rather than by the property.
Part-loads and single pieces
Two crew and a van for a room, a single heavy item or a part-load. Common in the two cities and around the garrison towns, where a lot of what moves is less than a household.
Held between two addresses
Goods collected, listed and held while dates settle. Hampshire produces a lot of these gaps — posting dates, long country chains, and renovations on older properties that always run on.
Not sure which yours is, or straddling two? Describe the property on the quote form and we will place it.
The era table
Two columns, because a building constrains a removal in two separate ways: what happens inside it, and what happens between its front door and the vehicle. Older properties usually fail on the first. Newer ones, surprisingly often, on the second.
If your property straddles two of these — a Victorian cottage with a modern extension is common across the county — say so. It usually means the hardest constraint from each.
The New Forest
Most of Hampshire is straightforward to work. The Forest is the exception, and not for picturesque reasons — the constraints there are practical, specific, and the kind of thing a firm from outside the county discovers the hard way.
Ponies, cattle, pigs and donkeys roam freely across the unfenced roads, and they do not move for a lorry. Forest deliveries are driven slowly and planned with that in mind rather than treated as a surprise.
A great many Forest properties sit at the end of an unmade or gravel track. Whether a full-size vehicle goes down it, or whether we shuttle from the road, is the single biggest question on the survey.
Low door heads, exposed beams at head height, and lime-plastered walls that mark easily. Protection goes further here than on an ordinary job, and some pieces genuinely will not go through the door.
Forest verges and unmade tracks soften quickly after rain, and a loaded vehicle on soft ground is a recovery problem. We look at the surface as well as the width, and sometimes the honest answer is a smaller vehicle.
None of this makes a Forest move difficult. It makes it a job that has to be surveyed on the ground rather than quoted off a floor plan. Cottages and rural properties goes further.
Leaving the country
European moves leave the county by road: up the M3 or the A34 to the M25, round to the M20 and across at Folkestone or Dover. Hampshire has two great ports on its coast, but those are deep-sea freight rather than what we do, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
We collect across Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset and the Berkshire border, and take loads from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol when a European run is already booked. How the overseas side works.
Asked most often
Because it predicts the job. A pre-1900 cottage has low door heads and a winder staircase; an interwar semi has a straight run and a drive; a new-build has a tight turn at the top and a management company. Knowing the era tells us more in one answer than a floor plan does in ten.
Southampton, Portsmouth, Winchester, the Forest, Eastleigh, Fareham, Havant, Basingstoke, Andover, Aldershot and Farnborough, and the villages in between. The Isle of Wight is a ferry job and a different proposition, and the Dorset side has its own firms.
Often, and where we cannot we shuttle with a smaller vehicle between the property and the lorry. Whether the track takes a full-size vehicle is the single biggest question on a Forest survey, and it is settled on the ground rather than from a map.
Some of it, honestly, may not. Large modern sofas and high wardrobes frequently will not go up a winder staircase or through a low door head. We measure at survey and tell you before the day rather than leaving a piece on the lawn.
France, Spain, Italy and Portugal by road, each with its own page. Hampshire has two great ports but those handle deep-sea container freight, which is a different service from ours — if that is genuinely what you need, we will say so rather than take the job.
More on the questions page — winder staircases, Forest tracks, listed buildings, and what happens when a country chain slips.
That, the two addresses, and what the approach looks like. Three answers and we can tell you something useful; anything less and we would be guessing.