Posts Tagged ‘Notting Dale’

More Holland Park & Notting Dale 1988

Wednesday, May 19th, 2021

Holland Park Ave, Holland Park, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1b-44-positive_2400
Holland Park Ave, Holland Park, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

I made these pictures in January 1988, on one of many walks around various areas of London. At the time I was working on two photographic projects, one in black and white and the other in colour. In black and white I was largely concerned with recording the physical infrastructure, photographing both buildings and streets I felt were exceptional and also examples that I thought were typical. My colour project was more difficult to explain, but both were linked to the changing nature of London.

Holland Park Ave, Holland Park, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1b-41-positive_2400
Holland Park Ave, Holland Park, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

January was a good month to take pictures of the streets. One of the smaller projects I’d undertaken was about trees in London, and in the Summer months they hide many of the buildings. Google Streetview is a great resource, but almost all the images around London appear to be from late Spring or Summer, and for some streets almost all you can see is trees. My project on the buildings of London tailed off around 1999 to 2000 because it then seemed to me that it would not be long before we would have something like Streetview with more comprehensive coverage, though it hasn’t entirely replaced the kind of pictures I took.

Holland Park Ave, Holland Park, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1b-31-positive_2400
Holland Park Ave, Holland Park, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

Holland Park Avenue is an ancient route to the West from London dating back to before the Romans. In later years until the nineteenth century it was known here as the Uxbridge Road. Land to the south of it was a part of the Holland House estate and from the middle of the 18th century land to the north became owned by the Ladbroke family of wealthy bankers. In 1819 after he inherited the land James Weller Ladbroke began to develop it, beginning with the parts along the Uxbridge Road.

The first houses along the road were built in 1824, but proved difficult to let or sell being so far from the centre of London. Building on the Ladbroke estate halted in the mid-1830s but began again in the following decade. When built, each terrace had its own name and house numbers, but in 1895 this section of Uxbridge Road was renamed Holland Park Avenue and the houses renumbered. You can read more about them on the Ladbroke Association web site.

Holland Rd, Holland Park, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1a-35-positive_2400
Holland Rd, Holland Park, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

Holland Road is a rather busy street that leads up from the south to the Holland Park roundabout at the western boundary of Notting Hill and was a part of the Holland estate whose development was carefully overseen by Lord and later Lady Holland. Just to its west is the railway line- now part of the London Overground network as well as carrying National Rail trains and the Underground service as far as Kensington Olympia.

The original plans for the railway in the mid 1830s had it going on a viaduct a short distance to the east close to Addison Road and new houses already built on the Holland estate, and an objection by Lord Holland moved the line to the edge of his estate and largely hidden in a cutting – as well as enabling him to see a few acres to the railway company for £5,000 and get them to largely finance a new covered sewer that ran along Holland Road enabling its development.

Kiln, Walmer Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1b-35-positive_2400
Kiln, Walmer Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

Walmer Road is the oldest street in Notting Dale, an old footpath which became the main street of the area and was renamed James St in the early 19th century and Walmer Road in the 1850s. Much of the area was dug for clay and bricks and tiles were made here and the area became known as the Potteries – and also because of the pigs kept in the area, the Piggeries. It became a notorious slum area with high levels of cholera, lacking proper sanitation until a new sewer was dug around 1850. The worked out brickfield ‘Ocean’ was filled in in the 1860s, part becoming Avondale Park in 1892. The kiln, a designated Ancient Monument, is opposite the park.

Walmer Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1b-21-positive_2400
House, 106, Princedale Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

Walmer Road is one of those that was cut short by the building of the Westway and it used to go north to meet Latimer Road. It now comes to an end just south of Grenfell Tower. It’s southern end is also confusing, with a junction with Princedale Road, Kenley Street, Hippodrome Place and Pottery Lane. I think Princedale Rd (formerly Prince’s Rd) along with Pottery Lane may well also have once been part of the old footpath which became Walmer Rd. The two roads run closely parallel and Pottery Lane rather looks like a mews – and its opposite side was once the stables for the racecourse.

Prince’s Road was developed piecemeal between 1841-1851. It became Princedale Road in the late 1930s to remove the confusion with several other Prince’s Roads in London. There are no listed buildings in the road which in 1978 became part of the Norland Conservation Area.

Shop, Portland Rd, Clarendon Cross, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1b-11-positive_2400
Shop, Portland Rd, Clarendon Cross, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

This shop on the corner of Portland Road and Clarenden Cross is still there with its half pots and name ‘Fired Earth’ a reminder of the origin of the area as the ‘Potteries’, about a hundred yards from the remaining kiln in a picture above.

My introduction to this area came in the book ‘Absolute Beginners’ by Colin MacInnes published in 1959 which I read when I was a teenager and which is loosely based around the Notting Hill race riots of 1958, later filmed. It has rather gone up in the world since then.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


Notting Hill – Notting Dale – 1988

Monday, May 10th, 2021
Nottingwood House, Clarendon Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-62-positive_2400
Nottingwood House, Clarendon Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

Notting Hill – and the London Borough of Kensington & Chelsea – is very much a place of two halves and these two pictures illustrate this, with the large block of council housing built on the site of the Notting Hill brewery and other industrial buildings shortly before the war.

Houses, Blenheim Crescent, Clarendon Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-61-positive_2400
Houses, Blenheim Crescent, Clarendon Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

This picture was taken from roughly the same place as the previous picture, but from the opposite side of the road. Houses in Blenheim Crescent are currently on sale for £4 million. Of course many of the social housing tenants in Nottingwood House took advantage of Thatcher’s social housing giveaway ‘Right to Buy’, though quite a few then found themselves needing to sell these properties, with many becoming ‘buy to let’ properties – now at perhaps £2000 a month, and other flats on sale for perhaps £800,000, so the difference here is rather less real than when I made this picture.

Bramley Arms, Bramley Rd, Freston Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-53-positive_2400
Bramley Arms, Bramley Rd, Freston Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

I think the pub had closed shortly before I took this picture. The building is still there but is now offices with flats on the upper floor. The pub has appeared in at least five major films including Sid and Nancy (1986), Quadrophenia (1979) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) as well as TV series.

This area was cut off on two sides by the construction of the Westway and the West Cross Route in the 1960s and became very run down and what had been the southerns section of Latimer Rd was renamed Freston Road. Oddly, Latimer Road station (on Bramley Rd) was not renamed, though it is no longer close to Latimer Road. In 1977 squatters occupied houses and flats the GLC planned to demolish in Freston Road and declared the Republic of Frestonia. The GLC granted them temporary leave to remain and the area was developed more sensitively by the Bramley Housing Co-operative from 1985. You can see the ‘Underground’ bridges in the distance on both streets in this photograph.

Freston Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-52-positive_2400

This neat and unpretentious factory building is still present on the corner of Freston Rd and Evesham Rd, but now surrounded by a large redevelopment and painted a dull grey.

Mural, Harrow Club, Freston Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-45-positive_2400
Mural, Harrow Club, Freston Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988

Although the area around and under the Westway was fairly desolate in 1988, attempts had been made to brighten the area with a number of well painted murals. The Harrow club was set up by former pupils of Harrow School in 1883 as The Harrow Mission Church “to improve the quality of life for local people, aiding harmony and promoting opportunity” for the people of Notting Dale and continues to do so.

Freston Rd, Westway, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-44-positive_2400

More graffiti.

Freston Rd,, Stable Way, Westway, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-35-positive_2400

The caravans are around Stable Way. The car is coming down a link road from the Westway which runs across the top of the picture to the West Cross Route. This is the edge of a BMX cycle circuit at the north end of Freston Rd.

Freston Rd, Westway, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-32-positive_2400

Another picture from the BMX track beyond the end of Freston Road, close to the Westway junction with the West Cross Route.

Freston Rd, Westway, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-31-positive_2400

This picture gives a more informative view of the location, though I can find no trace of this oval now, but it was I think a part of the BMX circuit at the north end of Freston Rd.

Freston Rd,, Westway, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-23-positive_2400

The landscaped area here is at the end of Freston Rd, with the Harrow Club at left.

Westway, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-14-positive_2400

Underneath the Westway and the links from the West Cross Route.

Westway, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988 88-1e-13-positive_2400

Various sports facilities underneath the motorway junction. Opened in 1970 as the A40(M) its status was downgraded in 2000 to an all-purpose road. There were plans to include a separated cycleway on parts of it announced in 2013 but these were scrapped in 2017. However Kensington & Chelsea Council have opposed all protected cycle routes on their streets, and even scrapped a temporary route which was implemented during the Covid lockdown.

More from the other half of Notting Hill in another post.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.