In 1999 when Richard Curtis was writing the movie Notting Hill, he lived just off Portobello down Lancaster Road towards Ladbroke Grove. To be fair then, he did know what he was writing about. His favourite place for coffee was a little shop barely more than a hole in the wall roughly diagonally opposite where he lived, the other side of Portobello Road on Lancaster Road. It was called the Coffee Stop.
He made the mistake of featuring both his own front door (the “blue door”) and the Coffee Stop in the film ad thus, not only did that particular crossing become momentarily the most famous on Portobello, but the Coffee Stop became the only place to drink coffee and I’m sure at that moment they couldn’t thank Mr Curtis enough!
This was like a red flag to the at-the-time bullish major players in the coffee market and within months both Starbucks and Coffee Republic opened their doors on opposite corners. Coffee Stop struggled on for a while longer (with, it must be said, a vastly superior product), but ultimately it couldn’t compete and closed for good.
The answer to the question posed by the title of this article
So what effect did the movie have on the area? To my mind:
- It put the area on the map, encouraging more tourists. It’s hard to tell that for sure though, because it was always pretty crowded anyway, although I suppose the fact that part of the the market is now fully open on Sundays might be some sort of an indicator.
- It pushed property prices up even more - this area was already overbought to the extent that there’s no way Hugh Grant’s “William” character could have afforded a flat there.
- It invited two major coffee chains to open up and ultimately caused the Coffee Stop to close.
But that’s about it! Portobello Road and the surrounding area survived pretty much intact, given that it’s always in a state of evolution anyway. And the evolution is, by and large, a good thing. I can’t ever recall an occasion on which I’ve hear someone pining for “the old days”, whenever those days were.
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August 13th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Well…. I do know that Notting Hill is not to much Posh… as Chelsea but It was only a joke… because to me it seemed to be posh… maybe in Spain they could understand me… But Im sure there are lots of interesting pubs in Notting Hill and I am really sure that NottingHill has an spectacular Carnival.
We keep on touch in our Blogs.
Thank you!!!
August 13th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Actually at the heart of my post to your blog was a sneaking admiration that you could write about Notting Hill in English and just assume that Spanish people would understand not only the words, but the irony.
I mean even if I spoke Spanish, how much do I know about which areas of, say, Madrid or Barcelona are posh?!
Full of admiration
A/
October 16th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I was just there on Tuesday! There was a older man with round glasses who was standing across the street from The Travel Company. He was telling everyone (including me) that this store was not the one from “Notting Hill” the movie. Now I know what he meant! I think he’s made it his personal mission to educate all the tourists because he was still there when we left the area two hours later.
Wonderful website! I am going to visit your kitchen remodel blog as well.
September 6th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Hello again, thank you for saying what has been on my mind lately, one thing you missed out on was the films latent racism.
The film spent all year on Portobello yet we did not see any black faces. Indeed, did the scene where Julia and Hugh get “hot hot hot” at the Carnival end up on the cutting room floor? Hmmm, questions must be asked!
(For those who may be wondering, it is a no). And they didn’t even pass Black Arab or Asian faces in the street.
About the painted street signs…
As an ‘Honourable member of the signwrighters guild’ (or is that ‘Member of the Honourable guild of…?) and someone who has painted signs on Portobello I can only agree. Just look at Westbourne Groves Antique section, some of those beautiful signs are around 100 years old, while plastic signs have a deteriorating 30 year life span at most.
P.S. Oh, I’ve just used up the rump of my two next ‘articles’.
Hope you are well.
September 6th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Hi Luke,
Yes that has been noted around here. Should have mentioned it. I particularly like this quote from the movie’s Wikipedia entry:
‘[Richard] Curtis chose the setting of Notting Hill for the film as he lived there and knew the area well, stating “Notting Hill is a melting pot and the perfect place to set a film”.’
As you say, the fact that it’s a melting pot doesn’t appear to have influenced the movie one iota.
March 30th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
the travel company is now a shoes shop. I was there in last week and I was so sad because that.