I have a found a few of these in the side porch and conservatory of my mother in laws house, they are about 5cm and have built webs in the corners of the room.
The house is near Bristol in the south west of England.
I was a bit concerned because I thought they look like brown widows and were perched right above the doorway and were the dog sleeps, so tried sucking them up with the hoover but it escaped into a crevice above the door.
Can anyone identify it from this picture?
This spider does appear to be in the genus Steatoda, which includes the so-called false widow spiders - http://wiki.britishspiders.org.uk/index.php5?title=False_Widow_Spiders
