Kitchen worktops in Hither Green

Yes. The Corbett Estate is thousands of near-identical late-Victorian terraces: the original kitchen sits in the back addition, and by now most have a side-return or full-width rear extension turning it into a kitchen-diner with a 3.5m to 4.5m run and an island. Because the houses repeat, so do the layouts. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. We would rather ask than guess.

1890s-1900s Corbett Estate terrace, Edwardian terrace and postwar infill. The rear extension is frequently original rather than added, which means it is solidly built and just as far out of square as the rest of the house. Pieces are sized to the tightest turn on the route before anything is nested to the slab. Settled on the drawing, cut once.

Long straight residential streets with permit parking and no off-street spaces, but most houses have a side alley or shared passage to the rear which is often the better route into an extension. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Worktop installation, worktop templating and worktop fabrication, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Same slab run, or it is not a match. Repeating house types make it predictable, but those side passages are typically under 800mm — measure before assuming a slab goes round the back.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. Real angles, not plan angles. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. Sink and hob are dry-fitted on the bench before dispatch, whoever supplied them. Changes cost a piece, not a tweak. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.