After builders cleaning in Penge, SE20

Penge grew because the Crystal Palace came to the hill above it in 1854. The University of Greenwich's Ideal Homes history gives the population as 1,159 in 1851 and 13,201 by 1871, with smaller houses on the lower slopes and bigger ones near the Palace. Heavy bombing in the war brought post-war estates. The Council Tax records for the streets round the High Street show both: 26.6% of homes with a recorded build date were built before 1900 and 37.3% between 1973 and 1999.

In Penge & Cator ward 58.6% of households live in flats: 36.4% in purpose-built blocks and 18.4% in flats inside converted houses, far above the 5.8% for the whole borough. In a conversion flat the dust from a new kitchen sits on the original cornice and the deep skirting, the sash boxes fill with it, and a gap under an old door lets it into the next room. The crew works from the ceiling down and goes over the joinery by hand.

The shared hall and stairs are part of the job only if you book them; say so when you send photos, because the builders' traffic usually leaves them dusty too.

Four conservation areas lie within 800 metres of the middle of the ward: Penge High Street, Belvedere Road in Anerley, Church Road in Upper Norwood and Crystal Palace Park. The Royal Watermen's and Lightermen's Asylum on the High Street, a Grade II group of 46 almshouses from 1841, was sold for conversion into private homes after its residents moved to Hastings in 1973. In the park, the prehistoric animal sculptures by the lower lake are listed Grade I.

On original windows the crew works paint flecks off only where the glass will take it and leaves crumbling putty alone, and says on the walk-round what will not shift.