Golders Green (NW11) is at the far west corner of my service area, 22 minutes from my Tottenham base on the M1 and North Circular combination, 32 to 40 minutes door-to-door. Planned upgrades are more common here than emergencies, so calling during the day to book a keyed-alike job across multiple family-home doors is the typical pattern.
The housing through Hampstead Garden Suburb is exceptional, large interwar family houses (four and five bedroom detached and semi-detached) with substantial timber front doors, side entrances and often a separate garden gate with its own lock. Along Golders Green Road and North End Road you’ll find Edwardian terracing, smaller two and three storey family stock, and the area has a notable concentration of mansion blocks around Hoop Lane and the station, four and five storey with shared communal entrances and individual flat doors inside. A typical NW11 family house can have five or six locks on the property when you count front, back, side, garage and outbuilding doors.
The three jobs I get called to most often in NW11 reflect that high-end family-home pattern. Mortice servicing on the heritage front doors is a regular, the original cast-iron cases are sound and just need the levers cleaned and regreased after decades of use, far cheaper than replacement and keeps the period door looking right. Multi-door keyed-alike systems are the second frequent job, where a homeowner wants one key to turn every lock on the property and I’ll cut a new keyway across front, back, side and garage cylinders in a single half-day visit. The third bucket is anti-snap cylinder upgrades to BS Kitemark 3★ on composite extensions and side entrances, where a high-value property has a single weak point that needs bringing up to standard, flat £120 fitted.