Home Care in Bickley

Where Bickley starts and stops

Bickley sits between Bromley town centre and Chislehurst, with Widmore to the north-west, Petts Wood to the south-east and Southborough to the south. Addresses fall in BR1 and BR2, which is why a postcode alone does not always say whether a house counts as Bickley. We cover Bickley Park Road, Southlands Road, The Avenue, Hawthorne Road, the roads off Southborough Lane and the streets either side.

Much of it was laid out in the nineteenth century by the developer George Wythes, with substantial houses by architects including Richard Norman Shaw and Ernest Newton. The heart of it is the Bickley Park conservation area. St George's Church on Bickley Park Road, built in 1863 to 1865 and Grade II listed, is the landmark to give anyone finding the house for the first time.

Big houses, older owners

In the 2021 Census, one resident in five in Bickley & Sundridge ward was 65 or over, and more than 600 were 85 or older. A third of homes were detached, and nearly half of households had two or more bedrooms to spare. There were 981 households of one person aged 66 or over living alone. A large detached house can be lonely once a husband or wife has died or the driving has stopped, and that is a common starting point for care at home here.

Arts and Crafts houses and personal care

Victorian and Arts and Crafts houses are lovely to live in and awkward to care in. Bathrooms are often upstairs and a walk from the main bedroom, staircases turn on half-landings that will not take a straight stairlift, and old thresholds catch a walking frame. We look at all of it when we assess. The answer may be a strip wash on bad days, a bed downstairs, or equipment from the council's occupational therapy service. Within the Bickley Park conservation area, altering a frontage, for instance with a ramp, can need planning consent, so check with the council before ordering anything fixed.

Can carers reach Bickley from Lewisham?

Usually, yes, though not on a single train. Bickley station sits between Bromley South and Petts Wood, with trains towards Victoria and Blackfriars but none through Lewisham. The more useful link from our office is the road: the 208 runs from Lewisham station through Catford and Bromley South, then along Southborough Lane past Southborough Library. Closer to the station, the 162 stops at Bickley station and St George's Church, and the R7 links the station with Petts Wood and Orpington.

Many Bickley houses have a drive, which takes most of the parking worry out of visits. Where a carer has to park in a permit bay near the station or a parade of shops, Bromley issues no carers' permits, so they need one of your visitor vouchers during controlled hours.

The 336: one bus to the Bridgeways memory clinic

The 336 runs through Bickley along The Avenue and Hawthorne Road, past Southborough Library to Turpington Lane, and on to Farnborough and Locksbottom. That matters for two reasons. Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust's memory service for Bromley is at Bridgeways on Turpington Lane, where GPs refer people with memory worries for assessment. And the bus ends at Locksbottom, one stop from the Princess Royal University Hospital on the R3 and R4 routes. A carer can go with someone to a Bridgeways appointment on one bus.

Getting out: parks and the library

Jubilee Country Park, 62 acres of grassland and ancient woodland, is reached from Southborough Lane and Blackbrook Lane. Southborough Library is on Southborough Lane. A companionship visit can include a slow walk to either, or simply company over lunch in a house that has gone quiet.

Help from Bromley Council, and the cost

Bickley is in the London Borough of Bromley, so a needs assessment comes from Bromley Adult Social Care: request it on the council's care assessment page or by email to adultsocialcare@bromley.gov.uk. A financial assessment follows if care is needed. Private families get a written price once we have walked round the house. Direct payments and the rest of the council process are set out on the Bromley hub page.

Most Bickley houses have a spare bedroom, so live-in care in Bickley is often the next step when visits leave gaps. If one of you has quietly become the carer, Bromley's carer's assessment is yours to ask for.

Everything our carers can help with →