Almost every window in West Wickham began life in the 1930s
JM Glass & Glazing work BR4 from a Waddon workshop in Croydon, CR0 4JT, six miles along the A232. Almost everything a glazier in West Wickham gets asked for is glass rather than frames. One misted pane out of a polygonal Coney Hall bay. A bowed leaded top light. New glass in a Crittall steel frame that rust has swollen and cracked.
The station opened in 1882 but West Wickham stayed a village for another fifty years. It turned into a suburb between the wars, and that is what you see on the ground today, street after street of 1920s and 1930s semis and detached houses on generous plots, with very little Victorian stock behind them and hardly any flat conversion. It makes BR4 the most uniform place we work. The same handful of glazing jobs come round again and again.
Coney Hall is the clearest case. The Morrell Brothers bought Coney Hall Farm after Sir Henry Lennard died in 1928 and started building around a thousand houses from 1933, sold from £479 with a small deposit. They went up to one house style: polygonal bay windows at the front, half-timbered gable above. Ninety-odd years on, those bays are the thing we get called to more than anything else in West Wickham.
Bay windows: why the measure takes longer than you'd expect
A canted bay isn't one window. It's three, five or seven panes meeting at angles, and on a house that has been settling for ninety years not one of them is a true rectangle any more. We template every opening on site rather than working off a standard size, because a unit ordered off a drawing comes back 3mm out and then sits in the frame under stress. That is usually what's behind a sealed unit that mists up again two winters after somebody else replaced it.
Most bay work in BR4 is glass, not frames. If one pane in a five-pane bay has gone cloudy, you change that pane. Double glazed unit replacement keeps the frame, the sightlines and any leaded pattern, and costs a fraction of a new bay.
Steel frames, leaded lights and the rest of the 1930s inheritance
- Crittall-type steel windows. Still in plenty of West Wickham houses. Hinges seize, the frames rust and swell, and the swelling cracks the glass. We reglaze steel frames where the frame is sound and say so plainly when it isn't, see window repairs.
- Leaded lights. Usually in the top lights over a bay. They bow, the cames go soft and the panes start to rattle. Repair is often possible; where it isn't, the pattern can be copied into a new sealed unit.
- Misted double glazing. The replacement windows fitted across BR4 in the 1980s and 1990s are well past the life of their seals now. Misted double glazing in West Wickham is the single most common call we get from this postcode.
- Cracked and broken glass. Toughened, laminated, obscure or plain float, cut to size and fitted on the first visit where we can carry it on the van.
- Rear extensions and big doors. Those wide 1930s plots mean deep back gardens, and a lot of BR4 extensions want a far bigger glass opening than the original house ever had.
On the bigger end of that, Edge Building Products named a roof light refurbishment of ours Installation of the Month, July 2025, 44 shaped double-glazed units into Edge 50mm capped aluminium glazing bars. It's a supplier feature rather than an accreditation, but the glass and the fitting were ours.
If you want something looked at, ring 020 8680 8334 or send a photo to 07956 138 582 on WhatsApp. A picture of the frame and a rough measurement usually tells us enough to give you a straight answer.
West Wickham High Street is a proper local shopping street: M&S Food, Lidl and two Sainsbury's mixed in with a long run of independent shops and restaurants, and parades of small retail units along the way. Station Road adds more. Then there's Kingsway Parade on Croydon Road at Coney Hall, put up in 1936 to serve the estate. That is the scale of shop front we deal with here: a single unit, a door, a display window, a fascia.
Shop front glass in BR4
A broken shop front is a trading problem before it's a glass problem. We board up, make the opening safe and measure the same visit where we can, then come back and glaze it. Toughened glass doors, patch fittings, laminated display windows, glass shelving. Shop front glass replacement in West Wickham is mostly single toughened panes and door glass rather than anything structural, the units on the High Street and at Kingsway Parade aren't big enough to need it.
We take emergency call-outs and we aim to make a property safe the same day where we can. We won't put a clock on it. An emergency glazier in West Wickham depends on what's already booked and what the A232 is doing.
Planning: most of BR4 is simpler than Beckenham or Bromley
Worth knowing, because it saves a phone call to the council. Unlike much of neighbouring Beckenham and Bromley, most of West Wickham's residential streets sit outside a conservation area, so like-for-like window replacement is generally permitted development. The listed buildings here are the exception rather than the rule: Wickham Court dates from 1469 and is Grade I, the Church of St John the Baptist is medieval, and The Swan and the old Unigate Dairies on Kent Road are both Grade II. Anything on a listed building needs listed building consent from Bromley Council first, and we won't start without it.
One thing we say up front. Replacing the glass in an existing frame is a repair and isn't notifiable. Replacing whole window frames is, and we're not on a self-certification scheme, so that route goes through Bromley Council building control. Most West Wickham work is glass, so it rarely comes up, but you'll hear it from us before you book, not after.
How we get to West Wickham
We're in Waddon, CR0 4JT, on the far side of Croydon. It's about six miles. The A232 does most of the work. It runs past us at Waddon, through Croydon, out through Addiscombe and Shirley as Wickham Road, and drops onto West Wickham High Street. Roughly twenty-five minutes' drive when the road is behaving. We're not going to pretend we're a West Wickham firm with a shop on the High Street. We're a Croydon glazier who covers BR4 properly, and the van carries glass, so a good number of jobs are finished on the first visit.
Glazing services we provide in West Wickham
Because the houses are all much of an age, a short list of jobs accounts for most of what we're called out to in BR4. Here is the full range.
Areas near West Wickham
We also cover Croydon, South Croydon, Selsdon, Shirley, Beckenham, Bromley. See every area on our areas covered page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes: all of BR4, both the 0 and 9 sectors. Coney Hall is one of the parts we know best, because the Morrell Brothers houses were all built to the same pattern and we usually know what the bay and the gable window look like before we turn up. Ring 020 8680 8334 and tell us the road.
We're based in Waddon, CR0 4JT, about six miles west. The A232 runs almost door to door: past Waddon, through Croydon, then Addiscombe and Shirley as Wickham Road, straight onto the High Street. Around twenty-five minutes' drive with a clear road. For emergencies we aim to make a property safe the same day where we can.
Just the one pane, in most cases. A sealed unit sits in the frame and can be taken out and replaced on its own, so a single cloudy pane in a five-pane canted bay is a single unit swap. We template it on site, because a ninety-year-old bay is rarely square. The frame, the sightlines and any leaded pattern stay exactly as they are.
Most of West Wickham's residential streets are not in a conservation area, unlike a good deal of Beckenham and Bromley, so like-for-like replacement is generally permitted development. The listed buildings are the exception: Wickham Court, St John the Baptist, The Swan and the old Unigate Dairies on Kent Road. Those need listed building consent from Bromley Council before anyone touches them.
Yes. Glass cut to size for West Wickham customers: toughened, laminated, float, obscure, mirror, and sealed units made to your measurements. Send us the sizes or we'll come and measure. Shelves and table tops get their edges polished. Email info@jmglassandglazing.co.uk with the dimensions and what it's for and we'll come back to you.
We do. Toughened glass doors, display windows, patch fittings and shelving, plus boarding up if a front goes in overnight. The units on West Wickham High Street, Station Road and Kingsway Parade are mostly single panes and door glass, which we can normally template and fit without shutting you for long.
Yes. Float, toughened, laminated, obscure, mirror and made-to-measure sealed units, cut to your sizes or measured by us in BR4. Shelves and table tops come back with polished edges. Where the piece is one the van can carry, it comes with us and the job is finished on the first visit. Leaded top lights over a Coney Hall bay are the exception. The pattern is copied and the unit made to order.
Glass, in nearly every case. A cloudy pane in a Coney Hall bay is one sealed unit swapped out, templated on site because a ninety-year-old opening has moved. That keeps the polygonal shape and the half-timbered gable above it as built, and it is far cheaper than a new bay. Where a steel frame has rusted through and swollen, we will tell you the frame is beyond re-glazing. We are not a replacement-window company.