Clocktower Cars runs licensed taxis, cabs and minicabs in Richmond, TW9 and TW10, twenty-four hours a day. Our nearest office is in Kingston upon Thames, just under five miles up the A307. To book a Richmond taxi, call 0203 388 9999, or book online and we will confirm the car and the price before you travel.
Three ways, and they are not equally good for every journey.
0203 388 9999 reaches our Kingston office, which is the one that covers Richmond, Petersham, Ham, Kew, North Sheen and St Margarets. 01372 747 747 is the Epsom head office if you would rather go through the main switchboard. Both are staffed at three in the morning as well as three in the afternoon.
People searching for Richmond taxis, Richmond cabs and Richmond minicabs almost always want the same thing: a licensed car with a licensed driver, arriving when they asked for it, at a price they knew in advance. In law there is a real distinction — a hackney carriage can be hailed, a private hire vehicle must be booked — but in ordinary speech the three words are interchangeable. You will not get the wrong sort of car by using the wrong word on the phone.
Our Kingston office is at 39A Walter Street, Kingston upon Thames, KT2 5DS — 4.9 miles from Richmond town centre by the A307 along the river. That is a short distance on the map and roughly half an hour in practice on a bad afternoon, which is a fair summary of driving anywhere in this part of London. Cars also work out of Chessington and the other branches when demand shifts, so the car that arrives is the nearest available one rather than the nearest on paper.
Richmond is closer to Heathrow than almost anywhere else we cover. 11.1 miles, about 27 minutes on the day we measured it. No other town on our list is that close to a major airport, and it changes how an airport transfer from Richmond should be planned.
Twenty-seven minutes means the pickup time is set by the check-in desk rather than by the drive. For a three-hour long-haul check-in you are leaving Richmond at a civilised hour; for a 6am departure you are leaving at around 2.45am, which is precisely the hour when a pre-booked car matters and an app-hailed one is a gamble. Our airport transfer service covers all four Heathrow terminals.
Coming the other way, we track the inbound flight number and adjust the pickup to the actual landing time, not the scheduled one. A delayed arrival does not mean a driver billing you for an hour of waiting, and it does not mean you standing at arrivals ringing an office. If you want the driver inside the terminal holding a name board rather than waiting in the short-stay car park, that is our meet and greet service, and it is worth the difference when you are landing with children, luggage or a tight connection onwards.
44.0 miles, about 1 hour 2 minutes via the M25. Gatwick is four times as far from Richmond as Heathrow and takes well over twice as long, and the M25 anticlockwise between the M3 and the M23 is the section that decides whether that hour holds. For an early Gatwick departure we build in the margin and say so when we quote, rather than quoting the optimistic figure and apologising later. There is more detail on our Gatwick transfers page.
Luton is 43.8 miles and about 1 hour 14 minutes going clockwise round the M25 and up the M1 for the last stretch. Stansted is 72.6 miles and about 1 hour 41 minutes, almost all of it motorway. London City is only 18.5 miles away — and on the day we measured, it took 1 hour 38 minutes.
That London City figure is not a misprint, and it is the clearest example in our whole coverage area of why we quote journeys rather than publish a mileage rate.
| From Richmond to | Distance | Typical drive | Route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heathrow | 11.1 miles | ~27 min | A316 / M4 |
| London City Airport | 18.5 miles | ~1 hr 38 min | A4 through central London |
| Luton | 43.8 miles | ~1 hr 14 min | M25 clockwise |
| Gatwick | 44.0 miles | ~1 hr 2 min | M25 anticlockwise / M23 |
| Stansted | 72.6 miles | ~1 hr 41 min | M25 / M11 |
Read that table from the top down. London City is twenty-five miles closer than Gatwick and takes thirty-six minutes longer. Luton is forty-four miles away and quicker than an eighteen-mile run into the Docklands. A firm charging by the mile would charge you least for the journey that costs the driver most, and would have to make that back somewhere — usually from the customers going to Heathrow.
Luton makes the same point in miniature. The M25-and-M1 route is 43.8 miles in 1 hour 14. There is a shorter way, straight up through north-west London, at 35.9 miles — eight miles less — and it takes 1 hour 18. Shorter is not quicker. It is why our drivers pick the route on the day and why the quote is for the journey, not the distance.
We do not publish a rate card, and the table above is the reason. Five things move the price of a taxi in Richmond, and only the first is distance.
Give us the journey and we will give you a figure before you commit. That figure is what you pay; it does not move because the traffic did.
Richmond station is unusual. It is in London fare zone 4 and it is the western terminus of two separate lines — the London Underground’s District line and the London Overground’s Mildmay line — while also carrying South Western Railway services on the Waterloo to Reading line, where it sits between North Sheen and St Margarets, 9 miles 57 chains from London Waterloo.
With that many ways into central London, the honest answer is that most Richmond residents do not need a taxi to get to town. Where the car earns its place is the journeys the network does not do well:
The Quadrant outside the station is busy and heavily enforced. Tell the office where you actually are — the station entrance, the taxi rank, Kew Road, the Little Green side — and the driver will come to you rather than circling. If the train is late, ring us; we would rather move the booking than have a car sitting on double yellows.
Richmond has more reasons to be visited than most towns its size, and a good proportion of our Richmond work is people coming to it rather than leaving.
Richmond Park and the towpath make this a town of dog owners, and a dog is the commonest reason a booking falls apart at the kerb. We run pet-friendly taxis with drivers who have agreed in advance to carry animals. Tell us the size of the dog and whether it travels in a crate when you book, not when the car arrives. Assistance dogs travel as of right and need no notice at all, though it helps the driver to know.
Twickenham Stadium — England’s national rugby union stadium and the home of the Rugby Football Union — is on Richmond’s doorstep, and an international there changes the roads around Richmond for most of the day. So does a big day at Kew or a sunny Saturday on the Green.
Two practical points. First, book the return before you go out, not afterwards; on a match evening every firm in south-west London is fully committed by the final whistle. Second, agree a pickup point away from the stadium cordon — the roads immediately around it close, and a driver who cannot reach you is no use to anybody. The office will suggest one.
Richmond upon Thames has a school run that crosses the borough rather than running to the nearest gate. Independent, faith and specialist schools pull pupils from a wide radius, and the German School London — founded in 1971 in the grounds of Douglas House in Petersham, with more than eight hundred pupils from kindergarten to the end of high school — draws families from across west and south-west London. Sixth-formers travel out to Richmond upon Thames College in Twickenham. Very little of this is a five-minute walk.
We run school taxis in Richmond as standing term-time bookings: the same pickup, the same time, the same named driver wherever the rota allows. For a child making the same journey 190 mornings a year, a familiar driver is worth more than a marginally cheaper fare.
Drivers carrying children are licensed and DBS-checked. Child seats and boosters are provided when you tell us the child’s age and weight at the time of booking — not on the morning. If the school requires a named driver on a list, we will supply the details.
Two or three families going to the same school at the same time can share a booking and split it. Parents have to arrange that between themselves; we simply run the route and invoice whoever you nominate.
We operate wheelchair-accessible vehicles with ramp access and proper restraints, and drivers trained to use them. A wheelchair taxi in Richmond needs more notice than a saloon does, because there are fewer of them and they are often already committed — a day ahead is comfortable, an hour is optimistic.
Kingston Hospital is the acute hospital for this area — run by the Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust, with an accident and emergency unit and a maternity unit — and it is about five miles from Richmond town centre, in the same direction as our office.
Our medical appointment transport is built around the way hospital days actually run. Outpatient clinics overrun. Discharges happen when they happen. We will hold an open return, and we would rather you rang to say you are two hours late than sat worrying about a car. If the patient should not be left alone at the door, say so at the booking and the driver will see them in.
Richmond’s commercial centre is a mix of professional services, media and technology offices, and a great deal of it sits within a short drive of Heathrow — which is exactly the profile that makes a business account worth having rather than a pile of expense claims.
For client collections, board visits and airport runs where the car is part of the impression, we run executive vehicles and a corporate chauffeur service: a smarter car, a driver in a suit, and a fixed price agreed in advance. We also run a same-day courier service for documents and packages that have to be somewhere today.
| From Richmond to | Distance | Typical drive |
|---|---|---|
| Kingston upon Thames | 4.9 miles | ~29 min |
| Heathrow Airport | 11.1 miles | ~27 min |
| London City Airport | 18.5 miles | ~1 hr 38 min |
| Luton Airport | 43.8 miles | ~1 hr 14 min |
| Gatwick Airport | 44.0 miles | ~1 hr 2 min |
| Stansted Airport | 72.6 miles | ~1 hr 41 min |
The first line is the one worth pausing on. Kingston is 4.9 miles from Richmond and takes about as long as Heathrow, which is 11.1. Short local journeys across this part of London are not quick, and any firm quoting you a flat per-mile figure is guessing.
Richmond sits at the northern edge of our patch, so a Richmond booking joins up naturally with the Thames-side and Surrey towns to the south and west.
Within Richmond itself we cover TW9 and TW10 and the surrounding villages and districts — the town centre, Richmond Hill, Petersham, Ham, Kew, North Sheen, St Margarets and the riverside. The full list of areas we cover and the branch locator will tell you which office is nearest to any address.
Airport transfers, station runs, the school contract, the hospital appointment, the wheelchair-accessible car, the dog, the eight-seater for the family, the executive car for the client. One office, one account, one number: 0203 388 9999.
Our Kingston office is five miles from Richmond town centre, and a person answers it at any hour. If a driver is late you speak to someone who can see where the car is. That is the practical difference between a local operator and an app: not the technology, but whether there is anybody to talk to when the plan changes.
Every car is a licensed private hire vehicle, every driver is licensed, and every journey is insured for hire and reward. Because the booking goes through the office, there is a record of who drove you, when, and where — which matters most for the journeys where it matters most: children, elderly relatives, and anybody travelling alone at night.
You get the figure on the call or in the booking confirmation. There is no meter and no surge multiplier, and the price does not move because the M25 did. If the job changes — an extra stop, an extra passenger — we will tell you what that changes before the car sets off.
Card in the car, card over the phone, or on account. Account customers are invoiced monthly and never handle payment at the kerb.
We are a taxi and private hire operator. We do not hire out self-drive cars or vans, and we do not do car servicing or repairs. If you have arrived here looking for car hire in Richmond, we cannot help — though if what you actually need is a car and a driver for a day, or several journeys across one day, ring the office and we will price it as a day booking.
Ring 0203 388 9999 and a person will take the booking and quote the price on the call, or book online and get a fixed quote back. We are a private hire operator, so every journey is pre-booked and cannot be hailed in the street. For anything with a deadline — a flight, an appointment, a train — ring rather than book at the last minute.
0203 388 9999 — our Kingston office, which covers Richmond, Kew, Ham, Petersham, North Sheen and St Margarets, answered twenty-four hours a day by a person. 01372 747 747 is the Epsom head office.
Yes. The office is staffed around the clock and cars run through the night. The honest caveat is that a pre-booked car at four in the morning is guaranteed and an on-demand one is not, because fewer drivers are on at that hour. Early flights and late returns should always be booked ahead.
About 27 minutes for the 11.1 miles, measured on 26 September 2026. That makes Richmond one of the closest towns to Heathrow that we cover. Traffic on the A316 and the M4 can stretch it, so we build a margin into the pickup time for an early check-in.
About 1 hour 2 minutes for 44.0 miles via the M25 and M23. Four times the distance of Heathrow and more than twice the time, so a Gatwick run from Richmond is a genuinely different journey and is quoted as one.
Because distance and time are not the same thing. London City is 18.5 miles from Richmond and takes around 1 hour 38 minutes, because the route runs through central London rather than round it. Gatwick is 44.0 miles and takes about 1 hour 2 minutes, because almost all of it is motorway. This is why we quote the journey rather than publish a price per mile.
Richmond is a zone 4 interchange. It is the western terminus of the London Underground’s District line and of the London Overground’s Mildmay line, and it also carries South Western Railway services on the Waterloo to Reading line, where it sits between North Sheen and St Margarets, 9 miles 57 chains from London Waterloo.
Yes. We run wheelchair-accessible vehicles with ramp access, restraints and trained drivers. Give us as much notice as you can — a day is comfortable, an hour is optimistic — and tell us whether the passenger stays in the chair, what type of chair it is, and whether a carer is travelling.
Yes, with notice, so we can send a driver who has agreed to carry animals. Tell us the size of the dog and whether it travels in a crate. Assistance dogs travel as of right and need no notice.
Kingston Hospital is the acute hospital for this area, run by the Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust, with an A&E and a maternity unit — roughly five miles from Richmond town centre. We also run to the central London teaching hospitals and will hold an open return for an outpatient appointment that overruns.
It depends on the journey rather than the mileage, which is why we quote rather than publish a rate card. The price is set by how long the journey actually takes, the time of day, the vehicle, whether the car returns empty, and any waiting or extras. Ring 0203 388 9999 with the pickup, the destination and the time, and you will have a fixed figure before you commit. That figure does not change because the traffic did.
Richmond in south-west London — TW9 and TW10, on the Thames, 8.2 miles west-south-west of Charing Cross, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. We do not cover Richmond in North Yorkshire, or Richmond in Virginia. If you are booking from outside the area, quote the TW postcode and there is no room for confusion.
Call 0203 388 9999 for a Richmond taxi, or book online and we will confirm the car and the price. Twenty-four hours a day, every day.
Richmond taxis, Richmond cabs, Richmond minicabs — taxis in Richmond and cabs in Richmond for Heathrow, the station, the school run and the hospital appointment, across TW9, TW10, Kew, Ham, Petersham and St Margarets. One number, licensed drivers, and a price agreed before you travel.
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