Serving Enfield
Leather & Suede Cleaners in Enfield
If you are after leather and suede cleaners in Enfield, this is a borough job rather than a London-wide one. Our workshop sits on Harbet Road in Edmonton, which is inside the London Borough of Enfield, and every EN postcode falls in our collection area.
Items are picked up from your door, assessed by hand before any price is agreed, cleaned on our own bench and brought back to you. Collection and delivery cost nothing on orders of £50 or more.
The bench is inside the borough
Enfield covers a lot of ground. Hadley Wood and Cockfosters sit on the western side, Enfield Lock and Brimsdown on the eastern one, and the borough runs from Palmers Green all the way up to the M25.
Wherever you are in that spread, the unit your coat ends up in is inside the same boundary, on a trading estate off Harbet Road in N18.
That has a practical effect. A pick-up in EN1, EN2 or EN3, or in the borough's N postcodes (N9, N13, N14, N18 and N21), is a short local run for our driver rather than a trip across town.
It also means the cleaning is not subcontracted anywhere. The person who looks at your jacket is on the same premises as the equipment that will treat it, and in this trade most of the skill sits in deciding what to do rather than in doing it.
Sending an item on to an unnamed third party puts that decision in the hands of someone who never met the customer.
Collection and delivery, and what it costs
The rules are short enough to put in a list.
- Every EN postcode is inside the covered area, along with the N postcodes that make up the southern half of the borough.
- Collection and delivery are free on orders of £50 or more.
- Under £50, there is a flat £10 for the round trip. It is charged once per order, not per item, so adding a second coat does not add a second charge.
- Bringing items to the workshop yourself is never charged.
Enfield suits collection better than most places we cover. Front doors are usually reachable without a parking fight, plenty of homes have someone in during the day, and the items people here want cleaned are frequently too big or too many to want to load into a car.
A pair of long sheepskin coats and a rug is a nuisance to carry anywhere and no trouble at all to hand over at the door.
What Enfield puts leather and suede through
Mud, wet grass and the green half of the borough
Trent Park, Whitewebbs, Forty Hall, Hilly Fields and Grovelands Park see a lot of use, and north of Clay Hill the borough runs into open green belt and bridleways. Suede footwear takes the worst of it.
Wet mud dries into the nap, sets hard, and flattens the pile so the colour reads several shades duller than it is.
The instinct is to wipe it off while it is still wet, which is the one thing that pushes the dirt further in. Let it dry completely, then work it out of the nap dry.
Our guide on how to clean suede shoes at home covers the point at which that stops being a home job, and boots that are past it go through shoe, boot and trainer cleaning.
Waxed cotton, which is a consumable
Waxed jackets earn their keep in this part of London, and people tend to forget that the wax itself wears out.
It thins first at the cuffs, across the shoulders and around the seat, so the jacket starts letting water through in patches while the rest of it still looks sound.
The common mistake is to reproof straight over a season of dirt, which seals the grime into the cotton and leaves a blotchy, tacky finish.
The order matters: clean first, re-wax second. That is what waxed jacket cleaning and re-waxing is for.
Lofts, garages and the room nobody heats
Enfield has far more storage than inner London. Family houses come with lofts, garages and outbuildings, and things put away in them tend to stay away for years rather than months.
Two problems follow. The first is moths, which go for wool, sheepskin and fur, and do their work in the places you never inspect: under collars, inside sleeves, along the seat of a coat, in the folds of a rug.
By the time the holes are visible the lifecycle has been running for a while, and that needs moth treatment rather than a wash.
The second is leather that has hung somewhere swinging between freezing and warm all year, which stiffens the skin and dulls the finish. That is usually recoverable through leather garment cleaning, and if you want to understand what moves the price, our piece on leather jacket cleaning cost is honest about it.
Choosing leather and suede cleaners in Enfield
Anyone can take an item in. Fewer places can tell you what should happen to it. Four questions sort one from the other:
- Where does the cleaning actually happen? Plenty of shops accept leather and suede over the counter and send it on. Ask for the address of the bench.
- Who assesses it, and do I get a price before work starts? An assessment on the item in front of a human being is not the same as a price list applied by category.
- Will you tell me if it is not worth doing? A cleaner who never talks anyone out of a job is not assessing anything.
- What happens if it cannot be saved? You want that answer before you pay, not after.
Being close by lets you check all four in person. You are welcome to come and see where your coat is going to be worked on, which is not an option with an operation that only ever meets you at your front door.
The jobs that come in from Enfield
| What arrives | Where it sits |
|---|---|
| Waxed jackets after a wet winter | Waxed jacket cleaning and re-waxing |
| Muddy suede boots and desert boots | Shoes, boots and designer trainers |
| Sheepskin and shearling coats out of the loft | Suede, sheepskin and shearling garments |
| Leather jackets gone dry or patchy in colour | Leather garments |
| Moth holes in wool, fur and sheepskin | Moth treatment and prevention |
| Sheepskin rugs and hides from the hallway | Skins, hides and sheepskin rugs |
| Handbags that have lost their finish | Handbag cleaning and restoration |
| A tired lining, a failed zip, a strap coming away | Repairs and alterations |
If you would rather bring it in
The workshop is at Unit F23a, Hastingwood Trading Estate, 35 Harbet Road, London N18 3HU, open Monday to Friday from 9am to 3pm and closed at weekends and on bank holidays.
From most of the borough it is a straight run down the A10 or the Hertford Road. The number is 0208 981 3232.
For opening times, wider coverage and the full list of postcodes we reach beyond Enfield, see our North London page.
Frequently asked questions
- Do you collect from Enfield?
- Yes. Every EN postcode is in our collection area, as are the N postcodes that make up the southern half of the borough. Collection and delivery are free on orders of £50 or more. Under that, a flat £10 covers the round trip, charged once per order rather than per item.
- I am up near the M25. Do you come that far?
- Yes. Coverage runs the full depth of the borough, so EN2 out past Clay Hill, Botany Bay and Crews Hill is included, as is EN3 towards Enfield Lock and EN4 around Cockfosters and Hadley Wood. There is no inner ring that gets a better service than the outer one.
- My suede boots are caked in mud. Have I ruined them?
- Almost certainly not. Dried mud usually comes out of suede, and the damage people do is in trying to wipe it away while it is wet, which drives it into the nap. Let the boots dry naturally, away from a radiator, and bring them in if the colour still looks flat once the dirt is off.
- My waxed jacket is patchy and smells musty. Can that be fixed?
- Usually yes, and in that order: cleaned first, re-waxed after. Reproofing over accumulated dirt is what causes the blotchy, tacky result people end up unhappy with. A musty smell from storage is treated separately from the wax itself.
- Something has been in the loft for years and has moth holes in it. Is it worth saving?
- That depends on how far it has gone, which is a judgement made with the piece in hand. Treatment deals with the infestation so the damage stops there, but existing holes are a repair question and are quoted separately. You will be told plainly if the cost outweighs what the item is worth to you.
- Do I need to be at home when you collect?
- Someone needs to be there to hand the items over, and the same applies when they come back. The arrangement is agreed with you when you book rather than left to a surprise knock at the door.
- Can I drop items off instead of booking a collection?
- Yes, and there is no charge for doing so. The workshop is on Harbet Road in N18, open Monday to Friday from 9am to 3pm. It is worth doing for anything valuable or unusual, because you can talk it through while it is in front of you.