Granite worktops across the London Borough of Hillingdon

32nd of 33 London boroughs, highest first

Built in the three decades after the war / 32%

Estate kitchens were drawn around a smaller appliance set than anyone uses now, so the modern layout usually needs more cut-outs than the original did. You see the slab before it is cut.

Ground-floor kitchens with garden access mean nothing gets carried up stairs, which on this material is the difference that counts. Better weighed while the slabs are still in front of you.

The middle half of our granite range runs from £148 to £250 per square metre, across 45 colours. In Hillingdon, 13.5% of homes sit in council tax band F or above, close to the middle of the London range. The figure comes from the cut list: how many joins, how many cut-outs, and how cleanly the pieces nest into a slab, not from the floor area.

Ickenham has the highest owner-occupation of the 22 Hillingdon neighbourhoods we list, at 82%, ahead of Eastcote (80%) and Ruislip Gardens (78%); Harlington has the lowest, at 41%. Granite is sealed on installation and topped up over time, a schedule that is easiest to keep where people own the kitchen they cook in.

The share of housing standing before 1919 is not even across Hillingdon: of the 22 neighbourhoods we list, it is highest in Northwood at 19%, then Uxbridge (12%) and Harefield (10%), and lowest in Ruislip Gardens at 0%. Walls of that age are rarely straight, so a granite top is scribed to the template rather than to a straight line.

We cannot post granite offcuts, so samples are the Worktop Worx quartz collection only.