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Yes, Yikes Car Wash now covers the east of Stevenage: Chells and Chells Manor, Pin Green and Martins Wood, the neighbourhoods the New Town built in the 1960s and 1980s between the Old Town and the fields. We clean cars where they are parked: on the drives of Chells Manor, in the Radburn courts of Pin Green where the front door faces a footpath and the car lives round the back, and at the kerb in the cul de sacs off Chells Way. Book online, pick a two hour window, and a vetted local washer from the Yikes Network arrives with water, power and kit.
Book your washKey facts
Parking reality
Chells was built in the 1960s and Pin Green after it, and Pin Green took the American Radburn plan: pedestrians and traffic kept apart, short cul de sacs off the through roads, and houses whose front doors face a footpath while the cars gather in a court behind. It was farmland until the New Town arrived. Chells Manor came later, in the 1980s, on the site of the lost medieval village of Chells, and it is the opposite pattern: drives at the front, garages at the side, and the highest car ownership in Stevenage, with 90 percent of Manor ward households owning a car and half owning two or more.
The town's parking strategy dates from 2004, and the council admits parts of it have been overtaken, verge parking above all. Chells, Chells Manor, Pin Green and Martins Wood are all now covered by permanent traffic orders that let civil enforcement officers issue £70 penalties for parking on verges and footways. The Priestley Road order defines a verge to include the ornamental areas the council maintains, so the grass outside the house is no longer a parking space.
The car stays where it legally lives, on the drive, in the court or at the kerb, and your washer carries the kit to it. In a Radburn court, put the court name and the bay in the notes when you book, and your washer will find the car without knocking on the wrong front door.
What the east of town does to a car
Stevenage is a town of Norway maple avenues, and the east is the leafiest part of it: sap on the bonnet from June, leaf fall from October, bird droppings all year. Chells Manor backs onto open country towards Walkern, so a dry week brings field dust that scratches if it is wiped off without water. Pin Green's industrial area adds a little grit of its own, and anything that commutes picks up brake dust on the A602 or the run to the A1(M).
From October the county's gritters treat the A and B roads and the bus routes, so Chells Way and Lonsdale Road get salt and the courts off them get it sprayed in. Salt left on paint for weeks dulls it; a wash every few weeks through the winter is the answer. Your washer rinses before anything touches the paint and photographs the car before and after.
How it works
Local life
A Roman hoard under the 1980s houses, a medieval manor, and the lakes at the bottom of the hill. These are the places that shape a week here.
In 1986 builders working on the new estate found a hoard of 2,000 silver Roman coins, minted in Rome, France, Turkey and across the empire, dating from AD 193 to 263 and carrying more than 35 emperors and their families. One is a rare coin of Pacatian, who ruled for a couple of months in AD 249.
The timber framed manor house is Grade II listed and mentioned in Domesday. It was built in the late 14th or early 15th century for the Wake family on the foundations of a much older moated house, three miles from the Old Town.
Source: Our Stevenage: Chells Manor
Digs in the Chells area found a small Roman farmstead, a malting kiln, a Celtic round house and a cemetery of 25 cremations, along with a dodecahedron toy, wine amphorae and samian ware that point to a wealthy family.
Source: Wikipedia: Stevenage
Farmland until the New Town, then one of the six planned neighbourhoods, built on the Radburn plan with its own shops, pubs, churches and community centre and later an industrial area on its edge.
Source: Our Stevenage: Pin Green
Down the hill, over 20 acres of open water in linked lakes, a sailing centre, a parkrun and free car parks at Fairlands Way, Southfield and Shephall View.
The borough's coat of arms carries six stars for the six original neighbourhoods: Old Stevenage, Bedwell, Broadwater, Shephall, Chells and Pin Green. The oak tree on the shield is for the woods, the acorns for the town's steady growth.
Source: Wikipedia: Stevenage
The 2021 Census counts 6,826 people in Chells ward, 6,435 in Manor, 6,494 in Pin Green and 6,423 in Martins Wood. The contrast between the 1960s and the 1980s is sharp: Manor ward is 33 percent detached, 77 percent owner occupied and 90 percent car owning, while Pin Green is 3 percent detached, 32 percent flats and 74 percent car owning, with a third of homes rented from the council or a housing association. Chells sits between them, with 82 percent of households owning a car and 41 percent two or more.
More on this: why bird droppings and sap damage paint and what a ceramic coating actually does.
See it in action
Yikes Car Wash live on GB News: washing cars through the hosepipe ban. The video loads from YouTube only when you press play.
See the latest washes. Before and afters, new areas and the team on the road, on our Instagram.
@yikescarwash on InstagramPopular in Chells
Outside wash and an inside vacuum, done where the car is parked.
Two years of protection against sap, droppings and road salt.
What's on locally
Updated 25 October 2026
Chells questions
Next door
We check local details against council, TfL and other official sources before we publish them. Parking rules change, so always check the sign at your bay.
Pop in your SG1 or SG2 postcode, pick a window, and leave the rest to us.
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