Full pad-wrap protection
Every piece of furniture is individually wrapped in heavy quilted blankets in your home, then only unwrapped once placed in its final position. Far fewer chips and scratches than any standard remover delivers.
Family-Run · BAR Member · Since 1982
Premier Moving & Storage Company serving Eastbourne, Brighton, Hastings, Worthing and all Sussex — with our signature full pad-wrap, guaranteed move dates and prestige steel storage rooms.
Why choose Mark Ratcliffe Moving
Every piece of furniture is individually wrapped in heavy quilted blankets in your home, then only unwrapped once placed in its final position. Far fewer chips and scratches than any standard remover delivers.
A 20% deposit locks your chosen date in. No bumping, no rescheduling for bigger jobs. We hold the slot and we keep it.
No fees for date changes, key waits, cancellations or moves running long. Your quote is your final price — we eat any overrun.
One of only a handful of UK removers with our own staff training facility. Every crew member trains here — including the pad-wrap method, fragile handling and customer service standards.
Individual steel strong rooms at our Lower Dicker depot with 24-hour CCTV. Climate-stable, accessible by appointment, with an antiques tier for high-value contents.
The same name on the lorry as the name on the paperwork. Mark personally surveys every overseas job and every white-glove relocation. Started 1982. Still here.
Our signature method
This is what makes the biggest difference to whether your possessions arrive intact.
Every piece of furniture is pad-wrapped where it stands. Drawer fronts taped, corners protected, fragile detail covered — before anything leaves the room.
Wrapped pieces go straight to the lorry and are loaded in a stack-safe sequence, strapped to the bulkhead. They never get unwrapped in transit.
At your new home, pieces are carried in still wrapped, placed in the room and the exact position you choose, and only then unwrapped. The result: damage-free arrival.
From first call to final box
Every move follows the same six-stage rhythm, refined over forty years of Sussex removals. Knowing what comes next is half the reason a move feels stressful — here’s exactly what to expect.
Mark or one of our senior surveyors visits your home for a no-obligation survey. We walk every room, note awkward items (pianos, antiques, anything heavy or fragile), measure access at both ends, and discuss timing. Within 48 hours you have a written quote — itemised, fixed-price, with no clauses that let us raise the figure later. For straightforward smaller moves, a phone or video survey is fine; for international, antiques or anything over a 3-bed, we always survey in person.
A 20% deposit secures your date in our calendar — it isn’t bumpable, isn’t negotiable, and isn’t reassigned to a larger job. Deposits are protected by the BAR Advance Payment Guarantee scheme so your money is safe even in the unlikely event we go bust. We send a moving-day pack with your crew lead’s mobile, our office numbers, depot postcode and a packing checklist for what to set aside in your own car.
If you’ve booked our full packing service, a packing crew arrives a day or two before move day. China, glass, books, electronics and pictures are wrapped in BAR-spec materials and labelled by room. Furniture stays in place — the pad-wrap method happens on the move day itself, in your home. Customers who self-pack get crisp moving boxes, packing tape, marker pens and bubble wrap dropped off (or collected from our Lower Dicker shop) two weeks ahead.
Crew arrive between 8 and 9 am, in uniform, with shoe covers, floor runners and door pads. Every item of furniture is pad-wrapped in the room before it leaves the house — never in the back of the lorry where corners get knocked. The lorry is loaded systematically (heavy first, fragile last, day-one boxes by the doors). Drive over. Unload in the same order so your kettle and bedding are out within the first half hour. Beds reassembled, wardrobes positioned, white goods levelled. We don’t leave until you’ve walked through and signed off.
If your new place isn’t ready yet, your contents come to our Lower Dicker depot in individual steel strong rooms — not shared containers. Climate-stable, alarmed, 24-hour CCTV, with an antiques tier for high-value pieces. Stay a day, a week, or several months. Access is by appointment, and the same crew that packed you in will pack you out when you’re ready.
The day after the move we call to check everything arrived intact and find out if you need anything moved one more time (it happens). The flat-pack cardboard goes back to our depot for re-use on the next job. If anything did arrive damaged, our claims process is direct — one form, no third-party adjuster, settled fast. The customers on our reviews page consistently mention this back-end follow-through as the bit that made the difference between a stressful move and a calm one. Forty years of repetition has taught us that the difference between a great remover and an average one isn’t the lorry or the lifting — it’s what happens in the week before and the week after.
Our services
Family homes across Sussex and Surrey. Pad-wrap, full crew, fixed price.
→Smaller loads, single rooms, partial moves. Uniformed crew, proper materials.
→Full pack, fragile-only, or unpack-on-arrival. BAR-trained packers.
→Individual prestige steel rooms with 24-hour CCTV. Climate-stable, antiques tier available.
→Worldwide door-to-door via our BAR Overseas Group partners. Full export packing.
→Upright, baby grand, full grand. Skid trolleys, climate-aware vans, full insurance.
→Period furniture, mirrors, clocks, art. Acid-free materials, cotton-glove handling.
→Office removals, house clearance, student moves, white-glove, custom crating, packaging shop & more.
Areas covered
From our Lower Dicker depot we run daily routes across East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey and Kent — plus regular London and overseas moves.
Eastbourne · Hailsham · Bexhill · Hastings · Lewes · Newhaven · Crowborough · Rye · Battle · +14 more
View East Sussex coverage →Brighton · Hove · Worthing · Chichester · Horsham · Haywards Heath · Burgess Hill · Arundel · +16 more
View West Sussex coverage →Guildford · Cobham · Esher · Dorking · Farnham · Godalming · Haslemere · Reigate · +13 more
View Surrey coverage →Tunbridge Wells · Sevenoaks · Tonbridge · Bromley · Beckenham · Canterbury · Maidstone · Tenterden · +6 more
View Kent coverage →What customers say
Outstanding service from start to finish. Mark gave us a fixed price after a quick survey and the crew arrived bang on time. Every single piece of furniture was wrapped before it left the house — we had zero damage on a four-bed move to Brighton.
Used Mark Ratcliffe twice now — once to move us from London to Eastbourne, once when we downsized within Sussex. Both times the crew were polite, careful, and quick. No surprise extras. They even took the cardboard away the same day.
We had a grand piano, several antiques and a long-distance move to handle. Mark visited personally, gave a clear quote, and the team handled every fragile piece like museum staff. The piano arrived perfectly tuned within a fortnight of the move.
Our fleet
The 1963 Bedford that started the company, alongside the modern lorries that make up our day-to-day fleet.
Accredited · audited · insured
Email office@markratcliffemoving.co.uk or call 01323 848 008 for a free, no-obligation survey. We will visit your home, walk through every room and email you a fixed-price quote within 48 hours.