The keys were with the neighbour. That was the whole arrangement for a three-bed semi-detached house off the Ashchurch side of town, GL20, cleared on a Tuesday in August 2024. The person instructing us lived in Surrey and could not get up for the day, so he wrote ahead and set it out plainly. The front door key and the garage key could be collected from next door at eight in the morning, and when we were finished the keys were to go back through the same letter box. He asked to be kept updated by phone as the day went on. Fair enough. That is how a lot of Tewkesbury clearances run, because a good number of these houses belong to families who left Gloucestershire years ago.
It was a full house. Three bedrooms, the loft already emptied by the family, but the garage was untouched, and on that sort of estate house the garage is where forty years of things end up. Paint tins, garden tools, a workbench, boxes that were never opened after the last move. On most of these properties the garage and loft are what turn a one-van morning into two team days, and this one was no different — several loads out, everything weighed in and documented at the transfer station afterwards.
Three loads, two days, and a written list of what was to stay
The other one worth telling is a clearance we took on in May 2026, again for someone who was nowhere near the property and had to run the whole thing by email. The team walked it first and came back with an assessment of three loads over two days, and that estimate deliberately left out the carpets, the curtains and the washing machine, all of which were staying put.
The rest of it was the usual mixed bag of a lifetime's furnishing. Two under-counter fridge freezers. A sofa, a pair of armchairs, a bed base, a headboard, the padded seats out of the dining room chairs and a footstool bundle — all upholstered, all of which have to travel separately from the general load. One mattress. One television. And then the paint. There were ten tins of it, and the instruction that came back to us in writing was specific: "for the 10 x tins of paint to remain". So they remained. Nobody had to guess, nobody had to ring from the doorstep, and the team worked to a list rather than to a hunch.
That is the part of the job people underestimate. Not everything can be seen or assessed from photographs, and if the team finds something on the day that changes the shape of the work, the client hears about it while there is still time to decide, not afterwards. Parking on the day, queues at the recycling centre, whether the charity depot is taking furniture that week, the sheer time it takes to sort small items out of drawers. All of it moves the clock, and none of it is visible in a photo of a living room.
Parking is the thing that decides how a Tewkesbury day goes. The old town is a medieval street plan — High Street, Church Street, Barton Street — and behind those frontages run the alleys the town is known for, some of them a shoulder's width across, with cottages tucked down them. A Luton box van does not fit down an alley. If you are in one of those, tell us when you book and we will work out whether we load from the street end, whether we need a bay suspended, or whether a smaller vehicle shuttles out to the van. The newer estates are the opposite problem in the nicest way: Northway, Newtown, Prior's Park, Mitton, Wheatpieces, and out in the villages Forthampton, Bushley and Chaceley — driveways, garages, room to reverse in. Most of our house clearance Tewkesbury work is on those estates, and most of it is straightforward for exactly that reason.
Where a house clearance load goes after it leaves
Sorting starts in the house, not at the tip. Furniture that is sound, crockery, unopened tools, books, clothing. Those get set aside and offered on to a charity shop or a reuse scheme rather than tipped, and Tewkesbury and Cheltenham between them have plenty that will take good stock. What is genuinely finished with goes to a permitted transfer station where it is weighed, ticketed and split into streams. We are a registered waste carrier, licence number CBDU419679, and the paperwork for your load exists if you ever want to see it. Tewkesbury Borough Council will happily ask a landlord or an executor where the contents of a property went; you want an answer that is a document rather than a shrug.
Sofas, armchairs and other upholstered seating are handled apart from the general load. The rules on persistent organic pollutants mean upholstered seating has to be kept separate and sent for incineration rather than shredded with the rest, so it is listed item by item before the van goes anywhere. Fridges and freezers are the same story for a different reason — the gas has to be drawn off under a permit, which is why they are counted separately too.
There are a few things the van simply cannot take. Half-used tins of paint, gas canisters, engine oil, chemicals from the back of a shed — and it is not us being awkward, it is what the permit allows. Tell us it is there and we will explain the proper route for it. Paint and engine oil go to the household recycling centre at Wingmoor Farm, over towards Bishop's Cleeve; asbestos and gas canisters need a licensed disposal route and we will point you at one.
What a house clearance costs, and how we work it out
One thing only on this page: ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send photographs, and you will get a figure. Nothing on a website can do that job honestly, because no two houses are the same and the loft and garage decide as much as the bedrooms do.
Photographs help enormously — a shot of each room, the garage and the loft takes two minutes and gets the estimate close. On the day the team leader walks the property before anything moves, and if what he finds does not match what we were told, you hear about it there and then and decide what happens next.
Where a solicitor or an executor is handling an estate, we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come out of the estate in the usual way once the house clearance is finished. There is no deposit. You do not have to be out of pocket personally for probate work, and we are used to whatever paperwork the firm handling the estate needs from us.
Probate house clearance in Tewkesbury: executors and houses shut up a long time ago
A lot of the work around GL20 is probate. Someone has died, the house has been standing for months, and the family is spread across the country. We are used to being the only people on site. Key safes, keys posted to us in advance, keys from a neighbour, meter readings taken and sent through, photographs of every empty room emailed the same afternoon so whoever is dealing with the estate can see the property is clear.
Probate clearances also tend to come with instructions attached, and that is a good thing. Items to be kept back for the family, a wardrobe nobody is to open, a china cabinet going to a relative, paperwork to be bagged rather than binned. Put it in writing before the day and the team works to it. We have done enough probate house clearance Tewkesbury jobs to know that the ones that go wrong are the ones where nothing was written down.
Houses that have got badly overfilled do not bother us either. We have been in properties where you could open a door about eight inches and that was your lot, and the team gets on with it without comment. No lectures, no faces pulled. If there is money, jewellery or paperwork likely to be buried in there, say so and the team keeps an eye out and puts anything found to one side for you.
Hoarder house clearance, flats and end of tenancy work
Some Tewkesbury houses are packed to the ceiling, and a hoarder house clearance is ordinary work for this crew rather than a reason for comment. It takes more people and more time, and everything gets looked at rather than shovelled, because paperwork and jewellery turn up among it more often than people expect. Say on the phone if a property is heavily overfilled and we plan for a second day rather than arriving with the wrong-sized team.
A flat clearance is its own job too — the converted flats above the High Street shops have a stair and a shared front door, so the carry route gets planned before anything is lifted. And where a tenancy is ending, an end of tenancy clearance runs to the landlord's or the agent's deadline rather than ours: empty, swept through and photographed the same day.
Around the borough and beyond
Tewkesbury is where the Avon meets the Severn, which puts it at the junction of three counties and makes the working area wider than the town. We cover the GL20 villages — Twyning, Bredon, Ashchurch, Walton Cardiff — and the GL19 stretch down the Severn: Deerhurst, Apperley, Tirley — and out to Winchcombe and Bishop's Cleeve. Cheltenham is fifteen minutes down the A4019 and we work right across GL50 to GL53.
South of that the pattern is the same. Gloucester and the GL1 to GL4 districts are routine, Stroud and the valleys behind it are a regular run, and we go over the Severn to Cinderford and the Forest villages as well as down to Yate on the Bristol fringe. Upton-upon-Severn and Pershore over the Worcestershire line are no trouble either. The firm has been doing this since 2007, and a good deal of the house clearance work we get in this corner of Gloucestershire comes from families we cleared for years ago.
Ashchurch for Tewkesbury station sits a couple of miles east of the centre on the Bristol to Birmingham line. It is the landmark we use when we are arranging to meet someone who has come up by train for the day. If you are travelling in to hand over keys, that is usually the easiest way to do it — trains from Bristol, Cheltenham Spa and Birmingham New Street all stop there. Junction 9 of the M5 is on the doorstep of Ashchurch, junction 10 covers the Cheltenham side.
Booking a house clearance in Tewkesbury
Ring or email with the postcode, the number of bedrooms, what is staying and what is going, and whether there is a garage and loft in the picture. Say who will let the team in, or where the key is coming from. We normally need a day or two's notice, sometimes less. The van arrives at nine, loaded with what the job actually needs, and in most cases the property is empty by the time we leave.
Common questions about house clearance in Tewkesbury
Do you clear the garage and loft as well as the house? Yes, and they need to be mentioned when you book, because the garage and loft are what decide whether a house clearance Tewkesbury job is one day or two. A garage on one of the Northway or Mitton estates can hold as much as a bedroom.
Can you work if nobody can be there? Constantly. Keys from a neighbour, a key safe, keys posted to the office in advance — all normal. We photograph the empty rooms and send them through the same day.
Who do you invoice on a probate clearance? The solicitor, the executor or the estate, whichever suits. Payment can come from the estate, and there is no deposit to find beforehand.
Do things have to be sorted before you arrive? No. If you want particular items kept back, write them down and the team works to the list, the way the ten tins of paint were left where they stood on the job above.
How much notice do you need? Usually a day or two. If a completion date is bearing down on you, ring and say so on 0800 046 5555 — we can often move things about.
Is anything taken away for reuse rather than tipped? Yes. Sound furniture, crockery, books, clothing and usable tools go to charity shops and reuse schemes around Tewkesbury and Cheltenham before anything else is considered.
The team is insured and licensed (waste carrier CBDU419679). Whether it is a flat near the abbey or a semi full to the rafters out at Ashchurch, the process for a house clearance in Tewkesbury is the same. Turn up, work through it, leave the place swept, send you the photographs.
