I’d missed Carnival in 2005 for the first year since 1990. I’d tried to get there despite a painful knee injury a few days earlier, but had had to abandon the journey; the quarter mile walk from home to railway station ending with me collapsing in pain and deciding it just wasn’t possible.
Children’s Day 2006
By 2006 I had a considerably improved camera, the Nikon D200, still DX APS-C format (Nikon were still adamant it was all you needed) but with a hugely improved viewfinder and 10.2Mp. And a rather wider range of lenses, though for carnival I only took the remarkably versatile Nikon 18-200mm zoom (equivalent to 27-300mm). Looking at the full-size images its hard to fault the lens quality, though it had more distortion than prime lenses, but this was of no consequence for these pictures.
Notting Hill Carnival 2006
The other big change was in processing software. Pixmantec had brought out its ‘Raw Shooter’ software and it was streets ahead of anything else. So good that Adobe had just bought out the company as it couldn’t face the competition. Even though this gave them the Pixmantec raw processing engine it was some years and several versions of Lightroom later that reached a similar level.
Notting Hill Carnival 2006
As in most years I went to Notting Hill on both the Sunday – Children’s Day – and the Bank Holiday Monday for the Carnival proper. I’d photographed the Sri Mahalakshmi Temple Chariot Festival earlier on Sunday, as well as taking a few pictures around Stratford, so I didn’t arrive until after 2pm on the first day, and for some reason I only put a few of the pictures on My London Diary. But there are rather more from Monday, and I’d decided to concentrate more on the actual procession than in most earlier years.
Notting Hill Carnival 2006Notting Hill Carnival 2006
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.
2003 was the first year I photographed Notting Hill Carnival using a DSLR, a Nikon D100. It was primitive by current standards with a small, dim viewfinder image and on 6.1Mp with a half-frame size sensor. Nikon at the time swore that what they called the APS-C sensor was all that you needed for a professional digital camera, and although they were right, later brought out ‘full-frame’ cameras to keep up with the Canons and others in what was really a marketing rather than technology led decision.
Notting Hill 2003
I’d switched to Nikon for the D100 but was still also using various Leica mount film cameras as well as occasionally my pair of Olympus OM4 cameras for both of which I still had a range of lenses from 15mm to 90mm for Leica and 21 to 200mm for Olympus. But for the Nikon all I had was a 24-80 zoom, bought largely because it was one of the cheapest Nikon lenses available. On the smaller sensor this was equivalent to 36-120mm full-frame, so meant I was working with no really wide lens.
Notting Hill 2003
The colour quality of these images is also rather limited, not by the camera but mainly by the raw processing software then available and also by my relative inexperience in using it. If I have time one day I will find the raw files from my backup disks and reprocess them. But although I think they are a little drab I think they still show the carnival spirit.
Notting Hill 2003 Notting Hill 2003 Notting Hill 2003 Notting Hill 2003
And here’s just one I rather like from the following year – by which time I and the processing software had improved a little.
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.
I’d forgotten when I wrote yesterday’s post that I had actually taken some colour pictures as well as the black and white of Notting Hill Carnival in 1990. I was then working in colour with colour negative film and I think the colour in some of these images is a little on the drab side. I think I found them less interesting than the black and white.
Notting Hill 1990
Notting Hill 1990
Notting Hill 1990
Notting Hill 1990
Notting Hill 1990
Notting Hill 1990
Notting Hill 1990
Notting Hill 1990
As usual, clicking on any of the images will take you to a larger version in the album, and you can also browse the other images in it. You can find colour from other years in the album as well, though in a rather strange order as I found them.
This weekend should have been Notting Hill Carnival. But not this year thanks to Covid. I’ll post instead a few pictures from earlier years over the next few days. The first time I photographed there was in 1990, and I was only taking pictures in black and white.
Notting Hill Carnival 1990
Notting Hill Carnival 1990
Notting Hill Carnival 1990
Notting Hill Carnival 1990
Notting Hill Carnival 1990
Notting Hill Carnival 1990
Notting Hill Carnival 1990
These and more are from my album ‘Notting Hill Carnival – the 1990s’ and clicking on any of the images above will take you to a larger version in the album, from where you can browse the rest of the collection.
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Stanley Crescent, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
When James Weller Ladbroke inherited his 300 acre largely rural estate on the western edge of London in 1819 he wanted to develop the area and employed landscape architect Thomas Allason to draw up a picturesque plan based on his visits to Italy and the London example of John Nash’s Regent’s Park. It was a plan that Ladbroke never found the money to build, but influenced some of those the estate sold land to and can still be seen in the map of the area, most of which was built up in the 1850s with large villas and terraces and in parts retained the communal private gardens between the streets.
Stanley Gardens, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Stanley Crescent and Stanley Gardens were developed by Charles Blake, who returned from running a highly profitable business in India and bought the area from Felix Ladbroke in 1852. He got artist and architect Thomas Allom to design the area based on Allason’s plans.
The streets were probably named after Lord Stanley who was Prime Minister in three separate short governments from 1852 on. In them he abolished slavery and reformed Parliment and created the modern Conservative party. Building began in 1853.
Stanley Crescent, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Allom was architect for the houses on the estate and, according to the Survey of London his designs broke away from the late Georgian restraint of earlier streets inn the area “in favour of a grand display in the latest taste … with scenic effect uppermost in his mind. The design of houses, streets, gardens and tree planting is seen with a painter’s eye, so that each turn and every vista is composed in a picturesque manner…”
Lansdowne Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Most of the houses remained in single ownership until after the First World War, when costs of upkeep became ridiculous and they were converted for multi-occupation and often allowed to deteriorate. By the time I took these pictures this process was in reverse, with houses being renovated and wealthier tenants paying considerably higher rents and some houses converted back to single family occupancy as the area became popular among the ultra-rich.
Lansdowne Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Landsdowne Road was also a part of the Ladbroke Estate, built around 10 years earlier than Stanley Crescent in the 1840s, while the estate was still owned by James Weller Ladbroke. He let plots to various developers to build, and the road lacks the overall view of the later area, with some quite varied houses. This suggests that the name ‘Landsdowne’ comes from “the much admired Montpellier and Lansdown residential estates in Cheltenham, built in the first three decades of the 19th century”. Alternatively it might have been named for another prime minister, William Petty, Earle of Shelburne, who served briefly in 1782-3, after which he was made 1st Marquess of Lansdowne. His major achievement as prime minister was securing a treaty which lead to the end of the American War of Independence.
Lansdowne Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Again you can read a detailed account of the buildings on the street on the http://www.ladbrokeassociation.info/LansdowneRoad.htm Ladbroke Association web site.
Lansdowne Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
When I was taking these pictures in 1988, information about this and many other areas of London was relatively hard to find. There was of course no World Wide Web and few books with any detailed description outside the City of London and some parts of Westminster. The volume of The Buildings of England by Cherry and Pevsner for this area was only published in 1991. In areas such as this, almost all I had to guide me was the A-Z and other street maps.
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.
Holland Park, Holland Park, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Holland Park is a street in London as well as an actual park and the name of a tube station which has transferred to an area of Kensington to the west of Notting Hill. Virtually every house in the street is listed – I think 88 of them. The exception is the Greek Embassy at No.1. This had been the most interesting house in the street. Built in 1860 it was bought in 1864 by banker Alexander C. Ionides (1810-1890), who had been Greek Consul General in London from 1854 to 1856. He and his son who inherited the house were wealthy Greek business men and patrons of the arts – and from 1864 and they transformed the property, commisioning external work leading Victorian architect Philip Webb, who also gave it a grand staircase and other fine public rooms, with internal decorative work by the leading figures of the day, including Willliam Morris who supervised much of the work and whose company provided much of it. It became a meeting-place for all London’s leading artists coming to its Sunday open house in the 1880s and 90s. The family moved out in 1898 and the house was sold a few years late.
Holland Park, Holland Park, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
The interior of 1 Holland Park was meticulously recorded by the leading architectural photographer of the day, Henry Bedford Lemere as well as in the work of others. But the new owners – who were also the owners of nearby Holland House – did not treat it well, whitewashing over the William Morris ceilings. The house was badly damaged by bombing in WW2 and was sold with Holland House and the park to the London County Council in 1952, when it was reported that little worth preserving remained and the house was demolished. The building which now houses the Greek Embassy was built in 1962 by architects Playne & Lacey and bought by Greece in 1973. An article available online gives muuch more detail on the Ionides family and the house
Holland Park Mews, Holland Park, Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Holland Park is actually two parallel streets, each stuffed with listed houses, built under the watchful eye of Lady Holland who saw to it that they met her standards, though at the time they were not felt to be anything special – typical houses for the wealthy. And the wealthy needed carriages which required to be kept at hand, along with the horses to draw them. They and the men who looked after them lived in the mews between the two streets, and would be drive the carriages around when required to the front doors – and the rich would emerge from those iron and glass porte cochères to ride in them.
Stoneleigh Place, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
A short distance north of Holland Park, some housing is on a less grand scale.
Freston Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Another picture from Freston Road. The London City Mission built The People’s Hall on Latimer Road in the Kensington Piggeries in 1902, when parts of the area were one of the worst slums in London. This part of Latimer Road was renamed Freston Road when the construction of the Westway and the West Cross Route cut it in half. The hall on the corner of Olaf St became the centre of the Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia in 1977. Probably it’s best known now as the place where much of The Clash’s album Combat Rock was recorded.
Royal Crescent, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Royal Crescent is at the western edge of Holland Park/Notting Hill, just to the north of Holland Park Avenue, just east of the Holland Park roundabout. It was one of the earliest parts of the Norland Estate to be developed in the 1840s, to the estate plan of Robert Cantwell and is Grade II* listed. It took a long time to rent these properties, which were thought to be too far out from London in the days of horse-drawn traffic for the wealthy.
St Ann’s Villas, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
St Anne’s Villas leads north from the centre of the Royal Crescent, and is on one of the routes I’ve sometimes walked more recently from Shepherd’s Bush station to join the silent walks remembering Grenfell.
St Ann’s Villas, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
St Anne’s Villas were built as a part of the Norland Estate, mainly around 1845. The area was developed by by Charles Richardson with barrister Charles Stewart taking building licences from him for these Tudor Gothic revival semi-deatched houses, now Grade II listed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
More graffiti.
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.
Another picture from the BMX track beyond the end of Freston Road, close to the Westway junction with the West Cross Route.
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.
The landscaped area here is at the end of Freston Rd, with the Harrow Club at left.
Underneath the Westway and the links from the West Cross Route.
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.
Emslie Horniman’s Pleasance, Park, East Row, Kensal Town, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Who you might ask was Emslie Horniman? You may recall the name ‘Horniman’s Tea’, though the company, founded in 1826 in Newport, Isle of Wight by Emslie’s grandfather, the more prosaically named John. It was tea that made the family’s fortune, particularly after the company moved to London in 1852. The family were Quakers and determined not to cheat their customers were the first to sell tea in sealed packets, ensuring it was not contaminated with contrary materials used by many others to increase profits, and by the end of the Victorian era under Emslie’s father Frederick John Horniman they had become the largest tea company in the world.
Emslie Horniman’s Pleasance, Park, Kensal Town, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
It was the money from tea that enabled Frederick Horniman, an inveterate collector of curiousities, to set up the Horniman Museum in south London which opened in 1901 and was extended after his death by his son Emslie, also a collector. Born in 1863 Emslie had been educated by private tutors before attending the Slade School of Art and travelling around the world and became a Liberal party politician in London. From 1906-10 he was Liberal MP for Chelsea and in 1911 he planned and donated the park in Kensal Town, Emslie Horniman’s Pleasance, to the London County Council. He probably had little interest in the tea business, which was sold in 1918 to J Lyons & Co and is now owned by Jacobs Douwe Egberts; the brand is apparently still popular in Spain.
The walled garden shown in these two pictures was designed for Horniman by C.F.A. Voysey and Madeline Agar and is Grade II listed.
Ladbroke Grove area, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Perhaps someone will remember where Rose’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetables were sold somewhere in Notting Hill. The house number, 222, should be a good clue, as relatively few streets aspire to such high numbers, but it doesn’t appear to match those I have looked at. The previous frame was taken on Ladbroke Grove, close to Barlby Rd, and the next on Southern Row.
Sculpture, Portobello Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
A mannequin holds a light fitting to illuminate a shop sign at the north end of Portobello Rd, close to Bonchurch Rd. I can’t read the sign because of the angle of the picture, but it later years at least it read ‘3 4 5’, the number (and name) of the shop below. Back in 2019 this figure was still on the wall, in a different pose and with its left arm and the sign missing.
Cobden Working Mens Club and Institute, Kensal Rd, Kensal Town, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
The Grade II listed Cobden Working Men’s Club and Institute at 170-172 Kensal Road was built in 1880, as a part of a Fabian initiative to educate the working classes and is the earliest known surviving purpose-built working men’s club and apparently retains many original features. These include an upper floor song room, probably where Bill Clinton played his saxophone as a student, and where Christmas parties were held for local children until the club closed at the end of the last century.
Architects for the building were Nathan Glossop Pennington and Thomas Edward Bridgen, and recently a ceremonial mallet awarded to Pennington on the opening of the building was presented back to Golborne Life by a woman from Texas who had bought it some years ago, possibly in the market on Portobello Rd.
Opinions seem to differ over whether the building was named after 19th-century radical politician Richard Cobden or a Fabian philanthropist, Lord William Cobden, who is said to have put up the money for the club. After it closed money was raised in 1995 to open it as a restaurant and night club; this closed in 2010 and the building was bought as a private residence by American businesswoman, model, actress, and television personality Caprice Bourret.
Bramley Rd, North Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Roseblades were brass or non-ferrous metal founders, incorporated in 1962 and struck off in 2004 several years after the company ceased operation. The firm was run by Ron Roseblade and his two sons John and Martin. Wilkinsons were also metal founders, but with a longer history, having been founded in 1793 as Philip Wilkinson and Sons and trading in Westminster, becoming just P Wilkinson & Sons in 1936.
The two companies became associated in 1972 when Wilkinsons moved out of Tottenham Mews and Tottenham Street to Stanmore – though the also appear to have had a part of this building. Roseblades also moved to works at 18 Minerva Road, Park Royal, Brent. The two companies made a number of memorials etc together “Four bronze servicemen on the War memorial outside Euston Station, the Wreath on the Cenotaph in Whitehall as well as the external lantern work at Victoria and Albert Museum”, some possibly with G W. Lunts of Birmingham.
Malton Rd, North Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1988
Malton Road runs parallel to Westway, seen at the right of the picture, and is a service road for the businesses underneath the elevated roadway here between St Mark’s Road and Ladbroke Grove. The buildings at right are of the London Ambulance Service. At left of picture are the backs of the houses in Cambridge Gardens.
See larger versions by clicking on any of the above images, all of which are in my album 1988 London Photos.
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.
A couple of doorways from the area largely built in the 1880s to the varied designs of George and Peto, with motifs borrowed from a range of cities across Europe.
You can read more about the architects in my previous post on the area.
Bolton Gardens, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987
A LCC blue plaque records that Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904) lived and died at 31 Bolton Gardens. He spent five years in India as a college principal and return in 1861 to work as a journalist on the Daily Telegraph, later becoming its editor, and he, together with the New York Herald sent explorer H M Stanley, who had three years earlier discovered David Livingstone, to explore the course of the Congo River.
But he was best known in the Victorian era for his book of eight poems, The Light of Asia, an Indian epic about Prince Gautama of India, the founder of Buddhism, along with other poetic works on India and the far east. Mahatma Gandhi admired his poetic English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, The Song Celestial and invited him to be vice-president of the UK Vegetarian Society. Widely decorated at the time, Arnold and his work are now largely and probably deservedly forgotten.
Barkston Gardens a short walk from Earls Court station was built from 1886 as a part of the Gunter estate, with houses by several developers. These flats have shops on the Earls Court Rd on their west side and on the east the long still private communal garden around which Barkston Gardens was developed. Previously this had been the site of Earl’s Court House.
Hogarth Place is directly opposite the Earls Court Road exit from Earls Court Station, and seems to integrate seamlessly with Hogarth Road for its first section. Although there are still shops along here, the cacophony of signage is now considerably muted, though the New Asia is still there.
Hotels, Cromwell Rd, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987
Cromwell Road is the busy A4, and perhaps not the quietest place for a hotel, but there are still many along it. I think this is now the Crown Plaza near Gloucester Rd station.
Sales Office, Point West, Cromwell Rd, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987
Until the end of 1973 passengers for British European Airways (BEA) flights from Heathrow could check in at the West London Air Terminal on Cromwell Road, from where coaches would take them along the A4 to the airport. The terminal was built where a short disused section of railway line called the Cromwell Curve had connected the District Line close to Gloucester Road station to allow trains to go to High Street Kensington avoiding a section of Metropolitan Line track. The building, by Sir John Burnet, Tait and Partners was opened in 1963 replacing a temporary facility and had six floors of BEA offices above the concourse. After the closure part of the building became a Sainsbury’s Superstore and the rest was converted into flats, including many now used for short-term rentals by tourists.
Cromwell Rd, South Kensington, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987
Christmas was coming and the Lorenzaccio Club was offering Christmas Parties ‘Lorenzo’s Way’ with a fine winged lion and a curious crescent moon sign supporting a rather sad-looking hanging basket. I didn’t go in to enquire.
Latimer Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987
The view from the west end of the platform at Latimer Rd Station as I waited for a train to Hammersmith.
Wellesley Rd, Gunnersbury, Hounslow, 1987
You can still see this row of houses with unusual facades topped by a faux balustrade reminding me of icing on a cake on Wellesley Rd though I think one of those shown here has since lost its topping.
