KENT GRANITE WORKTOPS: A CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE

Granite and Quartz worktops in Kent?

For many years Affordable Granite staff have lived and commuted in from Surrey and Sussex. Our team members live in Caterham, Dorking, Crawley, Purley, Croydon, Leatherhead and Guildford. I was the outlier – for many years in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, and then in Camberwell – deep into South East London. To the best of my memory, until quite recently we have not had a staff member living in Kent.

Robert Morden – Kent map circa 1695

Whether or not as a result of this, we always sold worktops in Kent, but have not been as dominant as we are in Surrey. We do some, of course, but our “frequency map” of installations really starts getting covered at Caterham and then in a strong sweep along the “downs towns” to the west, with masses of work in Dorking (where our regular partnership with Crown Kitchens has an impact) and on through Leatherhead, Ashtead, Fetcham and the Bookhams to Guildford. We have also installed many sets of kitchen worktops down the M23 corridor – with Crawley, Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill and Brighton (& Hove, actually) all being regular stop offs for the fitters. Again to the South West of us, we work very frequently in Horsham and often as far as the coast at Worthing, Littlehampton. And of course, we work in all parts of London – though with some reluctance in the centre and heart of North London.

But we are sparser to the East – even in Kent towns not so far from us. Is this about to change?

Will we become as well-known and respected for kitchen worktops in Sevenoaks and Tonbridge as we are in Dorking and Guildford?

From Sutton to Maidstone

First of all, our lovely Annabel moved with her fiance to the Maidstone area. Coming from Wallington, in the borough of Sutton, the commute from Kent is more awkward, but the area from Maidstone up to the Thames is one bit of the South East where there is a chance for a couple in their twenties to buy their own property. Congratulations to Annabel and Kyle for getting their act together to that extent – very focused and impressive! You can guess which company installed the brand new Capri quartz worktops in their kitchen!

Maidstone Kent montage wiki commons granite and quartz worktops

A montage of the Maidstone area

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Rodney Burton, John Stratford, Penny Mayes, Diliff and Stacey Harris

From Camberwell to Bromley

Champion Grove Camberwell SE5 by Bromley photographer and granite worktops salesman Andrew King Photography

A suburban semi Bromley by Bromley photographer and granite worktops salesman Andrew King Photography

From the urbs to the ‘burbs – I have moved from Camberwell to Bromley

Churchill Theatre and Lidl Bromley by Bromley photographer and granite worktops salesman Andrew King Photography

For me the change has been huge. Ten years in Camberwell, having lived in the same area in the 1980s, have made that gritty-yet-cosy corner of SE London very much my home. I have never lived as far East of the A23 as Bromley – the area is a totally foreign country. Going from a massive (if run-down) Victorian London town house to a classic 1930s semi is a shock too, although that IS familiar. I was brought up in Wallington, and the new house has an almost identical layout and feel to the home I knew back then.