This post is not finished has not been checked or edited
Addison Avenue
Good front gardens in this wide, tree-lined street of pastel-painted Regency houses which leads from the church to Holland Park – gardens with roses, lavender, hydrangeas, evergreen hedges and box.
29 A garden designed to be at its peak in July and August.
Aubiny Road
Aubiny House named after Aubrey de Vere last country house in Kensington. Built as a well house over a spring in 1690s. Private house until 1850 when it was a school. Painted by Whistler. Road built in 1859.
Aubrey Walk
Pumping Stationof 1857-8 by Alexander Fraser for the Grand Union Junction Water Company
Aubrey House Its site was renowned in the c 17 for the medicinal spring known asKensington Wells. The core of the house probably belongs toone built adjoining the spring c. 1698; its present appearance is owed to Sir Edward Lloyd, who added projecting wings to the central block and reconstructed the facade between 1745 and 1754. Later c 18 alterations included a drawing room created by James Wyatt in 1774 for Lady Mary Coke.
15-17 The accomplished classicist Raymond Erith in a restrained Regency style, unusual for its time, designed this on the site of former outbuildings, in 1950 for the owners of Aubrey House.
St George
16a Galsworthy
Avondale Park
A pioneering amenity for the area. Opened 1892 was then a vast pit of stinking slurry known as the Ocean. Maintained by the Vestry of Kensington.
Avondale Park Gardens
Council, 1919-22, small-scale terraces on a former workhouse site.
Avondale Park Road
Small early improvement - cottage flatswith pantiled roofsplanned in 1918 by W.H. Raffles forE.J. Schuster - council-owned by 1935
Avonmore Road
Avonmore Mansions reputed to be oldest purpose built block in London 1880s
20 plaques with Crowns and VR is it an ex post office
51 Edward Elgar,
Blenheim Crescent
Concentric crescents 1863-4;
Blenheim Arms
12 M’s, previously Mike’s Café.
13 Travel Bookshop
15 Books for Cooks
11 Garden Books (Blenheim Books incorporating Garden Books, as it is now known)
Harper and Tom's florist who sell interesting succulents and other less conventional window box options.
Launderette. Potted garden above a good example of resourceful and creative urban gardening in the most confined of spaces.
Bolton Street
Market
Buckingham court
Camborne Mews
Tower block plan as in Lancaster Road was given up in favour of more humane domestic developments built in the 1980s. Tactful borough housing redevelopment of 1980 by Robert Martin & Partners; traditional detail (windows below arched panels, small square metal balconies) with proportions echoing the nearby Victorian terraces
Camden Square
6/78 2.42" of rain fell in 40 minutes at the height of this storm 1" in ten minutes.
Campden Grove
1 Kent
2 Young
13 Ross
28 plaque to James Joyce 1882-1941 saying ‘Writer lived here’. Joyce, born in Dublin, was educated by Jesuits before entering University College, Dublin. He lived here briefly.
Campden Hill Square
1827/38 was called Notting Hill Square until 1893, when the residents asked for a change of names. Turner painted sunsets from the garden in the middle. Plaque to Turner on a Tree. The area’s major enterprise of the 1820s. It was probably laid out by JoshuaFlesherHanson, best known at the time for his promotion of Regency Square, Brighton, begun in 1818: both are three-sided around a large communal garden, with extensions laterally at the closed end. A basic formula is recognizable despite the variety of detail resulting from piecemeal completion over twenty-four years, beginning in 1827: the houses are generally of three storeys, in stock brick with stuccoed ground floors.
A large hillside square surrounded by beautiful houses, many of which have well kept and interesting front gardens. The central square is accessible only to residents but glimpses over the low old black railings show a peaceful space, with close-mown lawns, well stocked shrubby borders and shady walks beneath mature trees. Carefully sited benches and some good stone planters and terracotta urns filled with lavender and other low- key plants all add to the air of understated, well-bred charm.
1-5 The earliest buildings are near the turnpike road,
9 John Stuart John McDouall Stuart health broken by-hardships suffered in the first official crossing of the Australian continent, died at No. 9 in 1866.
16 home of Charles Morgan 1894-1958. Morgan was born in Kent, the son of an engineer. He entered the Royal Navy in 1911 as a midshipman, served in China and resigned his commission in 1913.
18, dramatically punctuating the summit of the square, rebuilt in 1887-8 in red brick by J. T. Newman
39 Lewis Kossuth
50 home of Evelyn Underhill 1875-1941. 'Christian philosopher and teacher lived here 1907-1939'
Tower Cressy weird looking mansion with stucco like stone
Chepstow Villas
The area around comprised Ladbroke family and other holdings. It was developed homogeneously with grand detached and paired villas in stucco with Italianate details. Wide, tree-lined
Thornbury Court. A hefty red brick block, formerly Our Lady of Sion
Convent, 1892-3 by A. Young, now converted to flats
39 plaque to Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian nationalist who sought refuge in England following the failure of Hungary's 1848-9 revolution against Austrian masters.
Clanricarde Gardens
Clarendon Crossone
Of the few narrow roads linking Ladbroke land to the west, was built to provide shops and services.
102 is decorated with oil jars in stucco;
Clarendon Road
12-14, 23-29 spacious houses designed by William Reynolds.
43-45 still grander by William Reynolds with Corinthian pilasters and pediment.
Lansdowne House towering 1904 by William Flockhart, is an addition incongruous both in scale and style; of brick with stone dressings, with vast, rather institutional-looking studio windows and crow-stepped gable.
83 Police Station now gone. Features in films 'Hard Day’s Night’.
Cornwall Crescent
Dawson Place
Sedate and dignified 1849-57
Dollis Hill Road
Nichols Green,
East Acton
Goldsmiths Company Estate, Ascot Gas
Elgin Crescent
60 home of Jawaharlal Nehru. 'first Prime Minister of India lived here in 1910 and 1912'.
Elgin Mews
Fitzgeorge Avenue
54 tablet about Avenue designed by Lord Mayor of London
Hesketh place
4 some of the first council rebuilding of 1906: one-room tenements in two blockslinked by an inner courtyard, of stock brick with careful red brick dressings
Hippodrome Mews
The 19th-Century Potteries of Holland Park. an area which, in Victorian days, was well-known for its yellow clay used for brick making and pottery (and also for its 'insalubrity' and its 'criminal and irreclaimable' inhabitants).
pottery kiln, physical evidence of the 'Potteries', as Dickens called the area. As well as tiles, the most popular local product, this surviving brick sentinel, when fired, emitted quantities of both flower pots and drain pipes. tile kiln from the old slum piggeries' potteries, the dining room of a house a picturesque reminder of the area's past rebuilt in 1879 by Charles Adams, 1970s private housing by Michael', Brown Associates, bordering on the Ladbroke estate.
Holland Estate
80 dukes lodge
Holland Park
Development on the site of Holland House from 1860. It has 90 identical villas by Francis Radford. Above the sober Italianate ground floors are pilasters with flowering urns, and dormers. The glass and iron canopies are later additions. 1a Greek Embassy.
80 Duke’s Lodge replaced No. 80 in 1939.
Holland Park Avenue
Most of the area to the north was farmland until c. 1840. During the building boom of the 1820s, stuccoed terraces sprang up along the Uxbridge road on the Ladbroke estate.
2-28 more overtly classical their centers with giant Doric columns in amis, are of 1826by Robert Cantwell
8-22 stuccoed terraces started 1824.
13-19 and 21-27 were built with Campden Hill Square as glorified return fronts. Set back in spacious gardens sloping to road level, they preserve a hint of former grandeur despite substantial alterations and, in some cases atthe time of writing, a lamentable state of decay.
80 Peter Eaton bookshop, not like an antiquarian bookshop. 1975. Shop can be controlled from one point. Five levels like a Chinese puzzle.
84 Ford Madox Ford
100 Castle
140 British Esperanto Association
203 Duke of Clarence
Austin Showrooms were Holland Park Hall opposite Royal Crescent, built 1908 as a skating rink
Holland Park Station. 30th July 1900. Between Shepherd’s Bush and Notting Hill Gate on the Central Line Central London Railway building by Harry Bell Measures, since refurbished. Original Central Line station. Rising gradient of 1:60 at the approach to help braking and fall of 130 for 100 yards going out to help acceleration
Milne Tavern, Nottinghill Farm site
Norland Mansions, a block of flats, on the north side of Holland Park Avenue at the corner of Norland Square, the first of any importance to be built in Holland Park Avenue.
Statue of St Volodymyr put up by Ukrainian community
Halcyon Hotel.
Holland Park mews
Mews for the Holland Park development by Francis Radford built in 1860-79. It provided 68 stables with accommodation above. There is an entrance gate at the end and parapets which show how wealthy the users of these mews were.
Kelvin Court
Kenley Walk
Octavia Hill
Kensal Green Gasworks,
Two canal arms into it gasholders 1882
Kensington Park Gardens
Posh names to encourage building and posh people to live there 1840s
5 an interloper of the later c 19. Very tall, with mute terracotta and a corner turret
7 William Crookes first house to be lit by electricity. Scientist who among other things discovered in 1861 the metal thallium.
Halfway along on both sides of the street there are gates leading into large communal gardens
24 1852-3 by Thomas Allow. Palatial five-storey terraces whose boldly handled bows and towers exploit the picturesque potential of street corners and vistas
Kensington Park Road
Planned in 1844. Most terraces are 1850-60
32-28 built in 1848
Kelvin Court (1938) present a distinctively classical balance between stone-faced ground and first floors and red brick above, crowned by a stone parapet, although all have the mildly undulating profiles of residential art deco.
Matlock Court,(1938) present a distinctively classical balance between stone-faced ground and first floors and red brick above, crowned by a stone parapet, although all have the mildly undulating profiles of residential art deco.
Buckingham Court (1938) present a distinctively classical balance between stone-faced ground and first floors and red brick above, crowned by a stone parapet, although all have the mildly undulating profiles of residential art deco.
Princes Court slightly earlier 1936 is more angular and more classical.
Kingsdown Close
1-3 Ladbroke Gardens
Borough’s sheltered housing for old people in pale brick, angled round a garden with garden rock stones brought from the Marlborough Downs
Ladbroke Estate
A coherent layout of crescents and large communal gardens whose main features were first suggested in a plan by Thomas Allason of 1823. Building did not take place until the 1840s. It was preceded by the curious episode of the Hippodrome racecourse, which covered an area of c.125 acres between Holland Park Avenue and the present Westway, the crest of Notting Hill providing an ideal vantage point. Opened in 1837, the course was immediately beset with difficulties; its transgression over the public footpath to Notting Barn Farm resulted in protest marches by local tenants, and it was closed in 1841. Clarendon Works Builders and Contractors, of some time between 1871 and 1892, and progressively up-to-date with its terracotta dressings, supplied fittings for redecorations. Many of the spacious houses in the south west corner of the estate, with full-height bows and pilaster strips, were designed by Allason and built by W. Drew in 1841-5
Ladbroke Gardena
1-3 Allom took particular care with interiors and rear facades as well: ornate fireplaces of marble, complex stair balusters, and lavish plaster cornices are features of many houses
Ladbroke Grove
The central crescents are separated by generous communal gardens whose ends provide pleasantly leafy interludes. This is the spine of the estate, a wide boulevard dominated at the crest of the hill by the spire of St John There has been much rebuilding here and what is left suffers from heavy traffic. Ladbroke name from Lord Mayor who owned property in the area
36-40 grandest survival by Thomas Allow,
60-68 lofty
St.John's Church. Gothic with a spire 1845. on site of Notting Hill farmhouse. Occupied for a bit by the Hippodrome racecourse. Features in films 'Seven Days to Noon’, ‘Steptoe and Son’.
63 Stone Tudor vicarage of 1844.
133
Ladbroke Road
Entrance to racecourse at exit from Holland Park Avenue. Ladbroke's arms on it. Whole estate on site of Hippodrome opened in 1837 sold for housing 1840. Land not well for running on, too much clay.
109-119, 66-68, and 80-86 with prominently bowed rear facades to impress the neighbours in Clarendon Road.
Ladbroke Square
Garden is the largest in London. They were included in original Victorian landscaping scheme in order to entice prospective purchasers of the West End.
Lancaster Road West
The street pattern dissolves into a mixed housing development dominated by an array of tower blocks. The estate was planned for the borough council by Clifford Feanfen in 1964-5, the tower and three-finger block representing Phase 1 of a scheme that was to include a commercial centre and other ambitious housing developments. Leo Ferdinand the footballer grew up here.
Lancefield Street
Mozart Estate
Meanwhile Community Gardens
Landsdowne Crescent
13-16 simply dressed, with squat Lombard towers, exhibits the rich variety of Reynolds's work.
19-38 refined stucco terrace by Henry Wyat, 1860-2, the centre houses bow-fronted as in Tyburnia
29 ½ Cleverly sandwiched between two end-terraces is by Jeremy Lever for himself, 1973 proportions and the pale stucco facade help this otherwise pure and stark modernist house to blend amicably with its fancier neighbours. Clever modern terraced house into an irregular site
Lansdowne Mews
Greens Court by APT, 1989, preserves a mews character with ground-floor garages, but the tall, rather stark gables above display disruptive expanses of glass
Lansdowne Road
Balloon Regent
12 Medium-sized fairly wild garden; borders, climbing roses, shrubs, mulberry tree 200 years old.
14-32 the principal architect was William Reynolds, whose work is typified by paired houses, stucco facing and ornament in a coarse Italianate manner. With ornate pilasters or heavy quoins
Lansdowne House studios
Lansdowne Walk
Houses to William Reynolds design
1 an earlier case of remodelling, by Aston Webb, who lived here from 1890 to 1930; his additions of c.1900 created a picturesque composition of steep roofs and banded chimneys (not at all in the spirit of his classical public buildings). Interiors with detail of high quality: outer hall with inlaid panelling, inner hall, and staircase with fine plaster ceilings.
19 The most interesting later c 20 contribution to this area enlarged and transformed in 1978-83 by and for Charles Jencks, working with the Terry Farrell Partnership, The street side is tactfully handled, the lower side extension with a curved roof echoing the fenestration and balcony patterns of the main house; post-modern features here are confined to details such as the dormers cutting into the cornice, with the favourite Jencks motif of the curve with staggered base. These forms are given much fuller rein on the busier garden front, where the two projecting double-height bays and the two dormers crowning vertical white rendered strips are intended to represent the members of the family. The interior, entirely replanned, is imbued with weightier symbolism, the intense atmosphere curiously reminiscent of the wilder excesses of Burges, although the stylistic resonances here are not Gothic, but an eclectic mixture including classical and Egyptian. The main rooms, representing the seasons, are arranged around the spiral 'sun' staircase, the cosmic theme underlined by such features as aluminium globes along the rails and, at the base, a Black Hole mosaic by Eduardo Paolozzi. The moon is portrayed on a mirrored semicircular light well. The iconography was not the starting-point, but emerged during the course of the design. The winter and spring rooms have bold but restrained fireplaces by Michael Graves. Opening on to the garden, a Jacuzzi with trompe coffering, a playful contribution by Piers Gough; other fittings and furnishings are largely from designs by Jencks. The quantity of detail tends to overwhelm the clarity of the plan. With its separate but linked rooms around the central stair, with ingenious vistas cut through both vertically and diagonally.
Linden Gardens
Mary Place
Mission hall. 1881-6 a somewhat insignificant remnant of the energy pumped into this area by the church
Matlock Court
Middle Row
Newland Estate
North side of Holland Park. Between Norland Road and Portland Road. 1839 developed by builder Richardson, until bankrupt, Cantwell design 'pepperbox house in Royal Crescent'.
St.Ann's Tudor style,
Norlands 'North Lands'.
Norland Road
Norland. This area, developed in the mid-19th century, preserves the old name ‘Northlandes’ 1428, ‘Norlandesgate’ 1438, ‘Norlands’ 1607, ‘Norland Hall’ 1822, that is 'the north open lands' of Kensington parish, from Middle English ‘north’ and ‘land’.
Sikh Temple
Norland Square
Laid out from 1840s by Robert Cantwell.
Site of home of Drummond the Banker
Norland House once stood here was a small country house with a estate owned by the royal clockmaker, Benjamin Vulliamy (father of the architect)
Notting Dale
Deprived part of this posh area. Brickmaking and gypsies. Cheap housing built from the 1860s. Some of the first housing associations began here including Octavia Hill.
Pembridge Road
57 Man to Man
Gate Theatre. Started in 1979 in a room above the Prince Albert Pub.
Pembridge Villas
The area around comprised Ladbroke family and other holdings. It was developed homogeneously with grand detached and paired villas in stucco with Italianate details
Pembridge Square
Lavish, albeit standard, Francis Radford houses 1857-64, with elaborately profiled dormers
Penzance Road
St Clement and St. James School
Portland Road
96 Elanbach. Features in films 'Hennessy’
102, 1850-60, oil jars and colour men
135-7 Julie’s Bar, Julie’s Restaurant. Features in films 'American Roulette’, ‘Match Point’.
Cowshed, previously Orsinos, and originally The Portland Arms. Features in films 'The Knack’.
Portobello Road
Franciscan Convent
171 Portobello Star
227 Features in films 'I Hired a Contract Killer’.
Geisler's Bakery
Pottery Lane
Old pottery site. The yellow clay was used in the 19th in the local kiln to make tiles, flower pots and drain pipes. There was a colony of pig keepers at the end. It was thus known as ‘The Potteries and Piggeries’ and hemmed in on the stiff clay ground between Portland Road and Latimer Road. It was an access road, and drove a wedge between the more prosperous Norland and Ladbroke estates, something which is still evident in the awkward connections between Princedale Road and Portland Road. Features in films 'It Happened Here’.
St Francis of Assisi. RC. Features in films ‘American Roulette’.
34-42 c 20 rebuilding has respected its old scale, following the tradition of the tiny two-room cottages
29 35 43 67 34-42 c 20 surviving tiny two-room cottages and sheds
77 Features in films 'Blow Up’.
Power Road,
Capple Gardens,
Princes Place
49 studios and model shop. A converted garage with a film production studio and the location used in ‘Blow Up’. John MacAsland and Partners.
Queen's Drive.
Lots of amazing half timbering.
Queensdale Road
Features in films 'The Knack’.
Central Gurdwara, the oldest Sikh Temple in Europe. Features in films 'Bend it Like Beckham’.
Queensdale Walk
Tiny stucco mews cottages of 1844, also with Jacobean or Tudor details, the double segmental lights still with their intricate glazing.
Rosmead Gardens
Features in films 'Notting Hill’.
Royal Crescent
Built on site of the home of Drummond, Banker. Laid out by Robert Cantwell and built as terraces in 1842-3. They are stuccoed, with precise lines on a curve.
Norland House.
12 Features in films 'Raising the Wind’.
Runcorn Place
Some of the first council rebuilding of 1906: one-room tenements in two blockslinked by an inner courtyard, of stock brick with careful red brick dressings
Shirland Road/Elgin Avenue
1880 HW Warwick Farm Dairy, cows used to come on the way, staff and flats for three
Sirdar Road
Henry Dickens Court. Complete contrast to the Octavia Hill stuff. Planned by the borough of Kensington in 1939 and built from 1945. Here the former street plan centred on Becher Street was totally obliterated and the small terraces were replaced by grim towers and sterile three-storey ranges
St Anne's Villas
11-33 12-34
Southern Row
St Anne’s Road
106-124 Octavia Hill and Rowe Housing Trust a pleasant terrace completed in 1988
126 unexploded bomb in the front garden
St.James' Gardens
The plaque on the church railings mentions that while the square was built in the four years after 1847, it was not actually finished until 5 years later because of shortage of funds
St James Church, 1845 that the church was not given the spire that its architect, Lewis Vulliamy, had no money. Addison Avenue provides a vista towards the church
1 John Barnett, broad-fronted three-storey pairs: linked by recessed bays, the stuccoed ground floors with a harmonious rhythm of arcaded windows.
2 Features in films 'The French Lieutenant’s Woman’.
20 Moore
22 Features in films 'Jack and Sarah’
54 Features in films 'Otley’.
Prince of Wales. Features in films 'It Happened Here’.
Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue
St.John’s Gardens
Features in films 'The Final Conflict’, ‘Otley’,
2 Features in films 'Hennessy’.
St.Mark's Road
103-105 housing
Stanley Crescent
10-12 Allom took particular care with interiors and rear facades as well: ornate fireplaces of marble, complex stair balusters, and lavish plaster cornices are features of many houses
Stanley Gardens,
Thomas Allow designed spectacular pocket of development, most of the houses in 1852-3. The development is denser than in the crescents, with palatial five-storey terraces whose boldly handled bows and towers exploit the picturesque potential of street corners and vistas
1850 stucco development used newly discovered cement facings
7a Abercrombie
10-11
Terrace with particularly splendid garden fronts with balustraded bows, pediments, and Corinthian pilasters
Stoneleigh Street
1871-84 the landowner James Whitchurch set out to improve, the area by laying out the street around school and church with respectable three-storey stock-brick terraces discreetly decorated with bands of moulded bricks
Threshers place
Small early improvement - cottage flatswith pantiled roofs planned in 1918 by W.H. Raffles forE.J. Schuster - council-owned by 1935
Tollgate Close
Reminder of toll on the canal bridge
Tredgold Street
1871-84 the landowner James Whitchurch set out to improve, the area by laying out the street around school and church with respectable three-storey stock-brick terraces discreetly decorated with bands of moulded bricks
Walmer Road
Notting wood house. A major Kensington council effort on a brewery site of 1935-9. Five storeys of flats are arranged around a court, their red brick given some character by brick quoins, decorative grilles, curved balconies, and curved arches to the open stair-towers.
An old pottery kiln stands by the roadside. As its plaque indicates, it is a relic of the potteries and brickfields, which covered this low-lying clay-land before it was developed. Pig-keepers also lived here, their animals helping to make the Potteries and the Piggeries notorious
Wayneflete Square
Part of the G.L.C.'s Silchester Estate, large with landscaping an improvement of 1987 on 1970s hard surfacing; here also the monotony of the three original four-storey terraces with grey brick bands is broken by the later side, built on the site of unused garages, with a perky row of two-storey houses in coloured brick, 1985-8 by Miller McCoy for the Addison Housing Association.
Taller flats by Barratt are with the blocky shape and pitched roofs of later 1980s post modernism.
Wedlake Street.
Footbridge over canal, Called Halfpenny Bridge because of toll
1905 replaced 1990
Wesley Square
Pleasantly reticent red brick terraces around a communal lawn.
Westbourne Road
Site between Portobello and Colville. LLC flats and shops
Wilsham Street
Kensington Borough Council three storey workers flats. This neighbourhood provides an instructive study in varieties of reconstruction. The Piggeries went in the 1870s, but in 1893 the area around Wilsham Street and Sirdar Road was still 'a West End Avernus', one of the poorest and most overcrowded slums in London. Improvements were slow and piecemeal. Octavia Hill was active here by 1900, the year in which the first of several housing organizations in the area, the Improved Tenements Association, was founded. After 1901 the new Kensington Council was empowered to rebuild and renovate, and by 1906 120 tenements had been built in what was by then known as the Netting Dale Special Area, establishing a pattern that was to continue for three quarters of a century.
OctaviaHill and Rowe Housing Trust – the most humane and appealing recent development, between is not by the council but by the (successor to the Improved Tenements). 1973-9 by H. M. Grellier Of Son, a successfullyvaried mix both of materials (stock brick, tile hanging, rendering)and of housing types, ranging from bed sitters to terraces of familyhouses (a total of 181 units) arranged in two- to four-storeygroups around a tight network of footpaths and small roads. Thebuildings are unassumingly detailed, but given a sense of identityby decorative blue roundels and by the distinctive stair-towersand rounded brick turrets which provide access to the upperflats. Despite the dense layout there are plenty of small private spaces, and none of the wastelands or graffiti so familiar in largecouncil estates.