Man and Van in Hersden

The older rows were built to house colliery families and it shows in the frontages. Doors open close to the pavement, driveways are rare, and for a fair number of them the useful way in is round the back rather than the front. None of that is a problem once we know, and all of it is a problem if we find out on the morning.

Rear access changes the plan more than people expect. It usually means a longer carry and sometimes a gate too narrow to take a wardrobe in one piece, so we bring the tools to drop frames down and put them back together at the other end. Mention the back alley when you ask for a quote and we will size the crew for the carry rather than for the number of rooms.

The road through Hersden carries Canterbury to Thanet traffic and it moves quickly. Pulling a Luton up outside a terrace on a road like that is not something to improvise on the day, so we work out in advance where the van can sit, and for how long.

Where the frontage will not take a van safely at all, we look at the nearest side street or the rear access and plan the carry from there instead. That costs a few minutes of walking and saves the much larger delay of a vehicle parked somewhere it cannot stay.

The houses built since the colliery went are a different job. Most have off-street parking, room to turn and doorways cut for modern furniture, so a three-bedroom move that would be tight in a terrace often runs straight through without anything coming apart.

They are also the addresses most likely to defeat a satnav, because some of those roads are newer than the maps. Send the postcode with a street name nearby and we will have the route settled before we set off rather than circling the village looking for it.