Locksmith Thame OX9 24 Hour Local Locksmith From £59

The honest answer is usually 30 to 45 minutes. From 169 Woodstock Road we take the ring road round to the Headington roundabout, then the A40 east to the Wheatley junction, where the A418 runs out through Tiddington into Thame. It is around 13 miles from central Oxford, a bit more from our base.

The Headington and Thornhill stretch of the A40 is the part that varies most. Late at night we are nearer 30 minutes; at the evening peak it can push towards the top of the range. Because we are not based in Thame, we would rather give you a realistic window than claim to be round the corner.

Thame’s long, wide High Street and the streets off it are lined with old buildings: timber-framed houses, Georgian brick fronts and cottages, many of them listed. Their doors are heavy, often original, and usually secured by an old rim latch, sometimes with a large box lock or a mortice that nobody has had a key for in years.

The usual job is adding or replacing a BS3621 5-lever mortice deadlock so the house meets insurance requirements, at £85 to £115 plus a lock at £35 to £65. On a period door we cut it in carefully, reuse existing holes where we can, and choose a finish that matches the furniture. If your building is listed, check whether your consent covers the door itself, although a like-for-like lock change rarely changes how a door looks.

Above the shops, many High Street buildings have flats with a separate side entrance. Those doors often have nothing more than a nightlatch, and a deadlock is a sensible addition. Our mortice lock page explains the sizes.

Thame has grown a lot in recent decades, with estates on the edges of town built from the 1960s onward and newer housing added more recently. These homes mostly have uPVC or composite doors with a multipoint lock and a euro cylinder. Common calls are a door that needs adjusting as the house settles, a gearbox worn out by lifting a stiff handle, and swapping the builder’s basic cylinder for a TS007 3-star anti-snap one. See multipoint lock replacement for the warning signs.

In the villages, stone and brick cottages and barn conversions bring a different set: oak doors with rim locks, large glazed doors with patio locks, outbuildings and field gates with padlocks. Lock repairs are £55 to £85 on a no fix, no fee basis wherever you are in OX9.

Plenty of our Thame calls turn out to be repairs rather than replacements: a key that will not turn because the lock is dry or the door has dropped, a loose handle, or a latch that no longer catches. Those cost £45 to £85 and we always try them first. Our door lock repair page lists the common faults.

For the next postcode west, see Headington OX3, which we pass through on the way. To the south, Wallingford OX10 covers Benson and Cholsey, and further down towards the Berkshire border our Henley on Thames locksmith page covers RG9. Everything else is on our areas we cover page, and if you are deciding who to call, our guide to finding an emergency locksmith at night may help.