Marketplace Collection in Harrogate

Downsizing sales, converted villas and the staircase nobody photographs

The stock of listings here is unusual. Older owners leaving the big houses on the Duchy Estate, Harlow Hill and Oatlands sell good furniture because it will not fit the apartment or the Pannal bungalow they are moving into, and they price it to be gone by the weekend. What the photograph never shows is that a lot of those villas are now flats: a shared Victorian staircase, a half-landing that turns twice, no lift, and a long gravel drive between the door and anywhere a van can sit.

Two things save a wasted trip. Measure the widest point of the item, then measure your own doorway and stairs, because a wardrobe that went into a 1900s villa in pieces rarely comes out whole. After that, tell us when the seller is genuinely free. Central streets are pay-and-display or resident permit, the Jubilee and Victoria multi-storeys are too low for a Transit, and Wetherby Road and Ripon Road gridlock whenever the Convention Centre or the Showground has something on.

What Harrogate marketplace & ebay collection usually involves

• Converted-villa flats around Harlow Hill and the Duchy Estate have a shared stair and a half-landing turn, so we want a photo of it before the day rather than on arrival
• The Stray wraps the centre and there is no stopping on that side, so approaches funnel onto the perimeter roads and we plan where the van stands before we set off
• Jubilee and Victoria are multi-storey and too low for a long wheelbase van, so any car park handover has to be at ground level
• We check the item against the listing photos before it goes in and ring you if it is not what was advertised
• Settle up by transfer beforehand if you like, or send the agreed cash with us and we hand it to the seller on collection, once the item has been checked against the listing

Where in Harrogate we work

• Duchy Estate and Harlow Hillvilla furniture sold off cheap by downsizers, usually out of a first-floor flat with a shared stair
• Oatlands and Pannalwhere the downsizers land, so items get bought into here as often as sold out of it
• Starbeck and Biltoninter-war semis with a drive or a back lane, the easiest loading in town
• Montpellier and Kings Roadshop-over flats on narrow one-way streets where a van cannot legally wait around
• Jennyfields and New Parkpost-war semis and family estates, the usual source of a sofa or a dining set
• Hornbeam Park and Cardale Parkdesks and office furniture listed by businesses, collected from a loading bay

If your street isn't listed it's almost certainly still covered, Harrogate and the surrounding HG1-HG3 postcodes are all inside our normal working area.

Common Harrogate runs

• Harrogate to Bradfordback down the A658 through Huby, Pool-in-Wharfedale and Yeadon, roughly 19 miles
• Leeds to Harrogateseller one end, buyer the other, and the commonest direction of travel on this job
• Starbeck to Oatlands or Pannala short cross-town run when the downsizer and the buyer are both Harrogate

What it costs

A Harrogate collection is priced on the round trip and the time it takes, with the stairs at each end mattering more than the miles. There's no travel surcharge for coming to Harrogate from Bradford, and you get the price before we set off, not after. See how we quote for the full breakdown.

Frequently asked questions: marketplace & ebay collection in Harrogate

Other things we move in Harrogate