The Chessington taxi number is 0208 397 4747. Clocktower Cars has an office in the town — Chessington Business Centre, Cox Lane, KT9 1SD — and it is open twenty-four hours a day. Our Epsom head office is 01372 747 747 if you would rather ring the main switchboard.
Whether you want a taxi in Chessington for the 07:10 to Waterloo, Chessington cabs for a Gatwick flight, minicabs in Chessington for the school run, a wheelchair taxi in Chessington for a hospital appointment, or a car to the World of Adventures on a Saturday in August, it is one office and one number. Book online or call for a fixed quote before you commit to anything.
Three ways to book a Chessington taxi
1. Call — 0208 397 4747, our Cox Lane office, answered around the clock by a person.
2. Book online — get a fixed quote and confirm in about a minute, day or night.
3. App — book, track the car and save your regular Chessington addresses. Details on our find us page.
Everything about taxi work in Chessington is shaped by one thing: a 128-acre theme park, zoo and hotel complex on Leatherhead Road that took around 1.5 million visitors in 2022, in a town served by a branch line with two trains an hour.
The zoo opened in 1931 and the theme park on 7 July 1987, making it one of the first combined animal-and-amusement parks in the country. There are two four-star hotels on site — the Safari Hotel, open since 2007, and the Azteca Hotel, since 2014 — plus Explorer Glamping.
Chessington South is the nearest station, and it is the terminus of the branch — two trains an hour from London Waterloo via Wimbledon, in fare zone 6, just under fourteen miles down the line. That is fine on a quiet Tuesday. On a warm Saturday in the school holidays, with a pushchair, a cool bag and three tired children, two trains an hour and a walk at the far end is a different proposition.
Most of our resort work is one of three things:
Book the return when you book the outbound. The resort empties in one go at closing, and on fireworks or late-opening nights several thousand people want a car within the same twenty minutes. A pre-booked car is held; an on-demand one is a gamble.
Agree the pickup point in advance. Leatherhead Road outside the resort is not somewhere to describe your location over the phone in a crowd. The driver will name a spot and wait there.
Above four passengers, ask about an eight-seater rather than splitting across cars — one vehicle to one pickup point beats two arriving three minutes apart in a queue of traffic. Tell us about pushchairs and child seats when you book; a family of four with a double buggy is not a saloon car, and finding that out at the kerbside helps nobody.
Two stations, a mile apart, on the same branch, both served by South Western Railway and both in fare zone 6. Off-peak that is two trains an hour to London Waterloo via Wimbledon, and Chessington South is the end of the line.
People do book Chessington North station minicabs and Chessington South ones as if they were interchangeable. They are not, and a car sent to the wrong one is a mile and ten minutes away. Say which station when you book. If you are not sure, tell us where you are actually going and we will work it out.
A branch line with two trains an hour is the single biggest reason this town books taxis. Miss one and it costs half an hour. Finish late in town and the gaps get wider. Engineering work closes the branch outright and replaces it with a bus that takes as long as a car and stops more often. Those are the evenings and Sundays when the phone rings.
Give us your train’s arrival time rather than your ticket time and we will bring the car in as you come off the platform. Both station approaches are residential and there is nowhere useful to sit and wait.
Chessington’s airport position is the most counter-intuitive in our whole coverage area, and it is worth understanding before you book a flight, never mind a car.
Two ways to do it:
Heathrow is barely fourteen miles away in a straight line and takes the best part of an hour whichever road you choose, because the direct route crosses a string of Thames-side town centres and the river, and the motorway route is twelve miles longer. For a flight we normally take the M25, because a predictable fifty-one minutes beats an unpredictable fifty-two. On a quiet Sunday morning the direct route wins.
About 23.2 miles and roughly 36 minutes on the M25 and M23. Nine miles further than Heathrow in a straight line and fifteen minutes quicker — because it is motorway almost the whole way. If your flight goes from either airport, Gatwick is the easier one from Chessington. Our Gatwick airport transfers page covers the terminals and pickup points, and the airport transfers page has the wider picture.
More people search for a taxi to Chessington from an airport than away from it, and a good share of them are families heading straight to the resort. A pre-booked car does four things a rank cannot:
We do not publish a price list, and Chessington shows why as clearly as anywhere. Heathrow is 14.3 miles away and takes 52 minutes. Gatwick is 23.2 miles away and takes 36. Any per-mile rate would be wrong on both.
Four things set a fare, and only one of them is distance:
So the useful answer is a quote for your journey, given before you commit. Ring 0208 397 4747 or get a fixed price online. If you are comparing cheap cabs in Chessington, compare quotes for the same journey at the same hour — that is where the real difference shows.
We run wheelchair-accessible vehicles across Chessington, Hook and Malden Rushett. A wheelchair taxi in Chessington has to be pre-booked rather than hailed — there are a limited number of accessible vehicles on the road at any hour, and booking ahead is what guarantees one arrives.
Whether the chair folds and the passenger transfers into a seat, or whether it travels occupied with the passenger strapped in — these are different vehicles. Tell us about steps, kerbs and gates at both ends too. Our wheelchair-accessible minicab page sets out the vehicles and the driver training.
Kingston Hospital and Epsom General are the two regulars, with the Royal Marsden at Belmont, St George’s at Tooting and the outpatient clinics across the borough behind them. The return leg is what people get wrong: book the outbound to a firm time and leave the return open, ringing 0208 397 4747 when you are actually finished rather than guessing a discharge time. For a course of treatment we can set up a standing booking with the same driver wherever the rota allows. Our medical appointment transport page explains how these work.
Chessington sits on the southern edge of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, which means a lot of its school traffic crosses a borough line — into Kingston and Surbiton one way, out to Epsom, Ewell and Leatherhead the other. Those are real distances on the A243 and the A3 at half past eight.
We run school taxis in Chessington as standing term-time bookings: same pickup, same time, named regular driver wherever the rota allows. For a child doing the same journey 190 mornings a year, a familiar driver counts for more than a marginally cheaper fare.
Drivers carrying children are licensed and DBS-checked. Child seats and boosters are provided when requested at the time of booking — tell us the age. Where a child travels unaccompanied we agree in advance exactly who hands over and who receives at each end, and nobody improvises at the gate. Our school run page sets out how the contracts work.
Where two or three Chessington families send children to the same school, a shared contract usually makes sense. Ask and we will work out whether the route holds together.
We carry dogs and other pets when the booking says so. That caveat is the whole point: a driver told in advance brings a suitable boot and no objection, and a driver surprised at the kerbside is a problem for everybody. Tell us the size and whether the animal is crated or loose. Assistance dogs travel as of right. See our pet-friendly taxis page.
If it is urgent, say so when you ring. We would rather send the right vehicle and a driver who knows what is coming.
Chessington has a working business estate around Cox Lane and Barwell — our own office is on it — and it sits close enough to Kingston, Epsom and the A3 that staff travel constantly. We run corporate taxi accounts across the town.
Staff book without handling money, every journey is itemised, and you get one monthly invoice with cost codes or departments attached. For most firms the saving is in the expense paperwork rather than the fare.
For a client run into the City or Canary Wharf, or a Gatwick collection where the first impression matters, an executive car is the difference between transport and hospitality. We also run a same-day courier service across Surrey for documents and samples that will not wait for a carrier.
Checked on Google Maps on 26 September 2026 for a clear road. A planning guide, not a promise. When you book we will give you a pickup time that allows for the actual day and hour.
| From Chessington to | Distance | Typical clear-road time | Usual route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gatwick Airport | 23.2 miles | about 36 minutes | M25 and M23 |
| Gatwick Airport (alternative) | 25.4 miles | about 37 minutes | A243, M25 and M23 |
| Heathrow Airport | 26.2 miles | about 51 minutes | A3 and M25 |
| Heathrow Airport (direct) | 14.3 miles | about 52 minutes | A244 through Esher and Walton |
| Kingston upon Thames | 5.8 miles | about 26 minutes | Surbiton Hill Park |
Three things stand out. Heathrow is nine miles nearer than Gatwick and fifteen minutes further away. The two Heathrow routes differ by twelve miles and one minute. And Kingston is under six miles away and takes twenty-six minutes — almost as long as three quarters of the way to Gatwick. None of that is guessable from a map, which is exactly why we quote journeys rather than publish a rate card.
Chessington is in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, postcode KT9, on the boundary with Surrey. Our office on Cox Lane covers the town and a long way past it.
| Area | Where it is | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Tolworth | North-east, on the A3 | Tolworth taxis |
| Surbiton | North, towards the river | Surbiton minicabs |
| Kingston upon Thames | North, the borough town | Kingston minicabs |
| Esher | West, over the A3 | Esher taxis |
| Thames Ditton | North-west | Thames Ditton taxis |
| Worcester Park | East | Worcester Park minicabs |
| Ewell | South-east | Ewell cabs |
| West Ewell | South-east | West Ewell cabs |
| Epsom | South, our head office | Epsom taxis |
| Leatherhead | South, down the A243 | Leatherhead taxis |
| Bookham | South-west | Bookham taxis |
Also covered without a page of their own: Hook, Malden Rushett, Chessington North, Barwell, Claygate and Oxshott. The full list is on our branch locator.
Our head office is at the Epsom Clock Tower, which is where the company’s name comes from, and a fair number of people land on this page looking for it. If your journey starts or ends in Epsom rather than Chessington, our Epsom taxis page is the one written for you, with the Epsom number, Epsom station, Epsom General and the Downs covered properly.
Chessington Business Centre, Cox Lane, KT9 1SD. A real address here, not a call centre somewhere else, with controllers who know that Chessington North and Chessington South are a mile apart, which gate of the resort you actually want, and how long the A243 takes at four o’clock on a school day. That is local knowledge and it does not come out of a mapping algorithm.
Different words, one number: 0208 397 4747. A taxi service in Chessington, a local taxi, Chessington taxi numbers, an airport run, a school contract or a wheelchair booking all go through the same office and the same controllers.
Clocktower Cars is a licensed private hire operator. Every car is a licensed private hire vehicle, every driver is a licensed private hire driver, and every journey is pre-booked through the office — which is what makes the journey insured. If something goes wrong there is an office to ring and a record of the booking, which is worth a great deal more at midnight than it sounds at noon.
Ask and you will have a fixed quote before the car is booked. No meter running on the A3, and no surge pricing when the resort empties in the rain.
Card in the car, card online, or on account. Say which when you book so the driver is set up for it.
0208 397 4747, our office at Chessington Business Centre on Cox Lane, answered twenty-four hours a day by a person. 01372 747 747 is the Epsom head office and will also get you a car in Chessington.
Yes. The Cox Lane 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.
Yes, and it is one of our most common bookings. Tell us the group size, whether there are pushchairs and which hotel if you are staying on site. Book the return at the same time as the outbound — the resort empties all at once at closing, and on late-opening nights several thousand people want a car within the same twenty minutes.
Chessington South, the terminus of the branch line, with two trains an hour from London Waterloo via Wimbledon. Chessington North is the previous station, about a mile away — please say which one you mean when you book.
About 36 minutes for 23.2 miles on the M25 and M23 with a clear road. Allow more at commuter times, and for a flight we build a margin into the pickup time.
About 51 minutes for 26.2 miles on the A3 and M25. The direct route through Esher and Walton is only 14.3 miles but takes about the same time, so the motorway is usually the better bet. Heathrow looks close on a map and is not, in practice, quicker than Gatwick.
Yes, and a good share of those bookings are families heading straight to the resort. We track the flight, the price is agreed before you fly, and you choose between a driver meeting you inside arrivals with a name board or a cheaper kerbside pickup.
In everyday speech, nothing. In licensing terms a hackney carriage can be hailed in the street or taken from a rank, while a private hire vehicle, which is what a minicab is, must be booked in advance through a licensed operator. Clocktower Cars is a private hire operator, so every journey is pre-booked through the office — which is why we cannot be flagged down, and why every journey has a record and a clear insurance position behind it. More on our minicab versus black cab page.
Yes, with notice. Tell us whether the chair folds and the passenger transfers or whether it travels occupied, and tell us about steps, kerbs or gates at either end.
Yes, when the booking says so. Tell us the size and whether the dog is crated or loose. Assistance dogs travel as of right.
It depends on the route, the time of day, the vehicle and any waiting — and distance is a particularly poor guide here, since Heathrow at 14.3 miles takes longer than Gatwick at 23.2. Call or get a fixed quote online and you will have a price before you commit.
Yes, along with Surbiton, Kingston, Esher, Claygate, Oxshott, Worcester Park, Ewell and Epsom. Several have pages of their own — Tolworth, Surbiton, Kingston and Esher.
Call 0208 397 4747
Our Chessington office, Chessington Business Centre, Cox Lane, KT9 1SD. Twenty-four hours a day.
Chessington taxis, Chessington cabs, Chessington cars and minicabs in Chessington — station runs to Chessington North and South, the World of Adventures, airport transfers, hospital journeys, school contracts and wheelchair-accessible vehicles. One local office, licensed drivers, and a price agreed before you travel.
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