[ 700AD-1800 | 1801-1830 | 1830s-1950 | 1950-1970 | 1970s-present ]
1801-1830
The Grand Union Canal and the Railways
In 1801 the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal was opened, followed by the Great Western and West London Railways, encouraging, in the following decades, London to grow westward along Bayswater. The hamlet had slowly become a village and buildings began to spring up on the south side of the road to house the migrating working class. Though small, today they are expensive even by Notting Hill standards, possibly because of their proximity to Holland Park. At the time they were regarded as being worse than the slums of the East End.
During that same period a potteries were build further west to fire bricks made from local clay (one still exists to this day on Pottery Lane) and pigs were farmed. For obvious, if unimaginative, reasons, the area was known as “Potteries and Piggeries”. In the mid 19th Century it was cleared to make way for development of much of the area as we see it today.
The Ladbroke family, who at the time owned most of the land, first planned to transform the area into a smart London suburb in 1823. It took a further two decades for their plans to begin to see fruition. One of the defining features was to be that buildings would back onto communal gardens. This was in contrast to the way buildings in other parts of the city had been laid out, with town houses being constructed around a shared garden in the middle of a square in front, separated by a road. Both layouts can still be seen in Notting Hill, but far more of the former and they are considered very exclusive.
Interestingly there are two roads between Talbot Road and Powis Terrace (and I’m afraid that their names temporarily escape me - I’ll have to look next time I’m there!) whose large town houses have effectively been “turned round”, so that what used to be the front entrance is now the back, opening straight onto the garden, while what was the back now opens onto a road. This has the unusual effect that one side of each of the roads has a different name to the other side.
Loading ...