Holland Park

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Post to the north Westbourne Park - Ladbroke Grove

Addison Avenue

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 Station of 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 as Kensington Wells.  The core of the house probably belongs to one built adjoining the spring c. 1698; its present appearance is owed to Sir Edward Lloyd, 

15-17 The accomplished classicist Raymond Erith designed 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 flats with pantiled roofs planned in 1918 by W.H. Raffles for E.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

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 

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.  

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.  

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. 

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. 

39 Lewis Kossuth

50 home of Evelyn Underhill 1875-1941. 'Christian philosopher and teacher lived here 1907-1939' 

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.  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 Cross one

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

Lansdowne House towering 1904 by William Flockhart, 

83 Police Station now gone. 

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 blocks linked 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. 

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.

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

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

Kensington Park Road

Planned in 1844.  Most terraces are 1850-60

32-28 built in 1848

Kelvin Court (1938) 

Matlock Court, (1938) 

Buckingham Court (1938) 

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, 

Ladbroke Gardena

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,

St.John's Church. Gothic with a spire 1845. on site of Notting Hill farmhouse.  Occupied for a bit by the Hippodrome racecourse. 

63    Stone Tudor vicarage of 1844.

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.

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

Lansdowne Mews

Lansdowne Road

Balloon Regent

Lansdowne House studios

Lansdowne Walk

1 an earlier case of remodelling, by Aston Webb, who lived here from 1890 to 1930; 

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, 

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

102, 1850-60, oil jars and colour men

Cowshed, previously Orsinos, and originally The Portland Arms. 

Portobello Road

Franciscan Convent

171 Portobello Star

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.  

St Francis of Assisi. RC. 

34-42 c 20 rebuilding has respected its old scale, following the tradition of the tiny two-room cottages

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.

Queensdale Road

Central Gurdwara, the oldest Sikh Temple in Europe. 

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

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.

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.  

St Anne's Villas

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.

Prince of Wales. 

Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue

St.John’s Gardens

St.Mark's Road

103-105 housing

Stanley Crescent

Stanley Gardens,

7a Abercrombie

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 flats with pantiled roofs planned in 1918 by W.H. Raffles for E.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.  

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; 

Wedlake Street.

Footbridge over canal, Called Halfpenny Bridge because of toll

1905 replaced 1990

Wesley Square

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.

Octavia Hill 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 & Son, 


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