Walking London, 9th Edition E-Book

Andrew Duncan

• Herausgeber: Inkspire
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 353

Beschreibung

Walking London is the essential companion for any urban explorer―visitor or native―committed to discovering the true heart of one of the world's greatest capital cities. In 30 original walks, distinguished historian Andrew Duncan reveals miles of London's endlessly surprising landscape. From wild heathland to formal gardens, cobbled mews to elegant squares and arcades, bustling markets to tranquil villages―Duncan reveals the pick of the famous sights, but also steers walkers off the tourist track and into the city's hidden corners. Handsomely illustrated with specially commissioned color photographs and complete route maps, the book provides full details of addresses, opening times and the best bars and restaurants to visit en route.

Leseprobe

Published 2022 by Inkspire

Inkspire is an imprint of Fox Chapel Publishing,903 Square Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552 USAwww.FoxChapelPublishing.com

Text © 2022 Andrew DuncanPhotographs © 2022 Caroline Jones, except as detailed belowMaps © 2022 InkspireCopyright © 1991, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2003, 2008, 2010, 2016, 2022 Inkspire

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and publishers.

Print ISBN 978-1-913618-25-4

eISBN 978-1-913618-26-1

We are always looking for talented authors. To submit an idea, please send a brief inquiry to [email protected].

page 19 © RoBeDeRo/istockphoto.com; page 33 © Shutterstock/chrisdorney; page 41 © fazon1/istockphoto.com; page 57 © MarioGuti/istockphoto.com; page 77 © Favian von Poser/Photolibrary; page 89 © Shutterstock/Alex Yeung; page 97 © cristapper/istockphoto.com; page 101 © Memitina/istockphoto.com; page 233 © Garnhamphotography/istockphoto.com

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Historical Background

Categories of Walks

Walks in Order of Length

Key to Maps

Map of London

Notting Hill

Kensington

Chelsea

Bayswater to Belgravia

Central Parks

Regent’s Canal

Regent’s Park

Marylebone

Mayfair

Westminster and St James’s

Bloomsbury

Soho to Trafalgar Square

Covent Garden

Lambeth and the South Bank

Inns of Court

Islington

Clerkenwell

Fleet Street and St Paul’s (The City West)

Bankside and Southwark

The City (East)

Wapping to Limehouse

Windsor and Eton

Hampton Court

Syon Park to Strawberry Hill

Richmond

Kew to Hammersmith

Barnes to Fulham

Dulwich

Highgate to Hampstead

Greenwich

Attraction Contact Information

PREFACE

As a relative newcomer to London, I set out to write this book with a pretty average knowledge of the city: in other words, I knew where different districts were relative to each other and I could navigate my way around the various places where I had lived and worked without using an A–Z Street Atlas.

By the time the book was finished, I had got to know large areas of London quite intimately and I realized that in the process my attitude to the city had been quietly but radically transformed.

Although never a sufferer from the rootlessness and alienation that blights the lives of so many city dwellers, it suddenly dawned on me that I had actually begun to feel at home here. So much at home, in fact, that I no longer dreamt of returning to the dales and moors of my native Yorkshire. As my outlook changed, so London became a much friendlier place and life in general that much better.

No doubt my publishers never realized the book would have quite such an effect when they commissioned me to write it, but I owe them my thanks nonetheless. I am indebted to my editor, Jo Finnis, for her efficiency and support; to all the friends and friends of friends, too numerous to name, who checked the routes and made sure all my directions and comments were accurate; to Sydney Francis for originally commissioning the book and for walking three of the routes; to Frank Atkins for information about the history of Hampton; to the staff of Kensington Library, the best public library around; and, last but not least, to all the anonymous voices at the end of the telephone line who patiently answered all my questions.

Walking London has been guiding visitors and residents around the capital for 25 years now. Many thousands of people have bought the book, and thousands more have borrowed it from public libraries. If (and it’s a big if) all these people had walked all the walks, between them they would have clocked up something like 15 million miles (24 million kilometres)! I hope you enjoy making your own contribution to this somewhat staggering figure; and if any comments, criticisms or suggestions occur to you as you tramp your way through the book, please email them to me or write care of my publishers ([email protected]). I’d love to hear from you.

Andrew [email protected]

INTRODUCTION

London’s streets, squares, alleys and lanes; its parks, heaths, gardens and open spaces; its palaces, villages, docks, canals and rivers – all offer an amazing variety of terrain for the dedicated urban explorer. One minute you can find yourself breezing down some grand thoroughfare or strolling nonchalantly round an elegant square as though you owned it. The next you could be treading cautiously down narrow lanes and dark alleys, peering into cobbled courtyards, squeezing through gates and wickets, tramping through woods or puffing up hill and down dale startling deer and other creatures rare even in the countryside.

Walking London contains nearly 100 miles of walks through this endlessly surprising landscape, more than enough to keep even the most hardened city walker on his or her feet for a good while to come.

There are 30 walks altogether: 29 in London and one – mainly for the benefit of foreign visitors – in Windsor. All the walks are original, invented by me over a winter and a summer and then individually checked by a small army of pedestrian friends.

Each walk acts as a guide to a different part of London. In general, these are the most historic and attractive parts of the capital, the two usually going together. As in conventional guidebooks, the walks take you to most of the well-known places – but they also steer you off the beaten track into forgotten corners of London.

Wherever the walk happens to be, the emphasis is always on the visually attractive and stimulating, not on trying to cover every single place of interest that a guidebook would mention. As you will discover in this book, views take priority over venues.

History plays a strong part in the book – you cannot get away from it in London – but anything interesting, unusual or simply puzzling, whether old or new, gets a mention. My overall aim has been to try to anticipate any questions you may have about anything you can actually see en route and, subject to limitations of space, to provide satisfying answers.

How to choose a walk

(1) If you do not know London at all, read the summaries at the start of each walk to get the flavour of the different districts.

(2) If you want a special kind of walk or a walk that includes a visit to a market, museum, garden or other attraction, go to the ‘Categories of Walks’ listing beginning on page 12. If you cannot find what you are looking for there, try the index.

(3) If you want more information about the places and attractions on any particular walk, skim through the ‘Attraction Contact Information’ listing (beginning on page 226) under the walk’s title.

When to do the walks

Apart from the Inns of Court walk, which has to be done on a weekday because the inns are closed at weekends, any walk can be done on any day of the week and at any time of day, subject to a few restrictions mentioned in the ‘Note’ at the start of certain walks.

Remember that at weekends the inner city areas are likely to be quieter than on weekdays and that the quieter parts of town – parks and gardens mainly – are likely to be more crowded.

Distance and duration

The walks range in length from 2 miles to 6 miles (3.2 to 9.6 kilometres) with over half between 2½ and 3½ miles (4 and 5.6 kilometres) – the average is actually 3¼ miles (5.2 kilometres). A list of walks in order of length is given on page 15. The approximate duration is given at the beginning of each walk. Bear in mind that timings are based on my pace, which is quite quick, and do not allow for stops.

Transport

All the walks start and finish at either Underground stations or at railway stations (usually above ground) in places not covered by the Underground network. Sometimes riverboat and riverbus services are also listed to provide maximum transport flexibility for the car-less. (I have left buses out because experience shows that bus information changes too often to be reliable in a guidebook of this kind.) If you do have a car, try leaving it at home and use London’s excellent public transport instead.

Refreshments

City walking is not like country walking. Tarmac is a lot harder on the feet than turf, and the less-than-pure air tends to enervate rather than exhilarate. Traffic noise and the endless bustle of people are also tiring. My advice therefore is to take things very easy. Do not try to do the walks in a rush, and stop or rest whenever you feel the need. If fuel is required, see the guidance at the beginning of each walk under ‘Refreshments’.

Dating from 1504, St John’s Gate in Clerkenwell, passed on the Clerkenwall walk, was once the southern entrance to the Priory of the Knights Hospitallers of St John. It now houses the museum of the Order of St John, ancestor of the modern St John Ambulance.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Throughout the book certain key people and seminal events in London’s past crop up again and again. To save explaining who and what they were each time, I have brought them all conveniently together here.

The development of modern London

First, something about the City and the history of London. The City is the financial district of modern London and the oldest part of the capital. It actually means the City of London, the ancient Roman city founded 2,000 years ago and, although not physically demarcated in any way, still very much an entity in its own right as well as being entirely self-governing with its own Lord Mayor and police force. The City of Westminster, the other ‘city’ within modern London, was founded 1,000 years later. It grew up around Westminster Abbey and the royal palace built alongside by Edward the Confessor (now the Houses of Parliament). This was in the 11th century, shortly before the invasion of the Normans from northern France in 1066.

In subsequent centuries the land between the cities of London and Westminster was gradually built up (the modern Strand and Fleet Street), and streets and houses were built east, west and north. As late as 1800, however, London was still a comparatively small city, bounded on the west by Hyde Park, on the north by Marylebone Road and Euston Road, and on the east by poor working-class settlements beyond the Tower of London and the City. In the south there was a fringe of building along the river bank, nearly matching in breadth the developed area in the north, but not nearly so deep. The population was about 1.1 million.

In the 19th century London positively exploded, thanks to the railways. Its land area increased by about seven times and its population shot up to 6.6 million despite a phenomenally high death rate caused by over-crowding, disease and insanitary living conditions. Hundreds of farms, cottages, country houses and villages were swallowed up in this remorseless expansion, hence the frequent references in the walks to such and such a place having been a quiet country village until it was engulfed by the tide of new building in the 1800s. London’s population reached an historic peak of 8.6 million in 1939. Subsequently it fell. Now it is rising again and in January 2015 broke through the previous highest total.

The dissolution of the monasteries

Henry VIII initiated the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 as part of his religious policy of a break with Catholic Rome, but he was also motivated by a desire to grab the enormous wealth of the religious houses. Inmates were either executed or pensioned off, depending on whether or not they accepted the king instead of the pope as head of the church. The actual buildings, of which there were many in medieval London, became royal property. Most of them were subsequently sold off and knocked down and their sites redeveloped.

The Great Fire of London

The Great Fire broke out on the night of 2 September 1666 in Pudding Lane in the east of the City. During the next three days, fanned by strong easterly winds, it spread west as far as Fleet Street. The extent of destruction was great. Two-thirds of the medieval City was destroyed, including 13,200 houses, 44 livery halls and 87 out of more than 100 churches, old St Paul’s Cathedral among them. Only nine people were killed, however. The City was subsequently rebuilt, but on the old medieval street plan.

Burial grounds

By the 17th century the graveyards of London’s parish churches were full to bursting, so detached burial grounds were opened. By the 1850s these, too, had become grossly overcrowded, so large cemeteries in the suburbs were created. These are still in use. Many of the old central London burial grounds and churchyards have been converted into public gardens. Several feature in these walks.

The Blitz

The Blitz or heavy bombing of London began in August 1940 and lasted until May the following year. Once again the City was very badly hit, nearly a third of its built-up area razed by bombs and fires. In June 1944 the VI and then the V2 rockets began to descend on London, particularly affecting the suburbs. Overall, air raids during the Second World War killed over 15,000 people and damaged or destroyed over 3.5 million houses.

Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723)

The most famous architect in the history of London. A scientist to start with, he became professor of astronomy at Oxford while still in his 20s. In the early 1660s he turned increasingly to architecture. While the ashes of the Great Fire were still warm he produced a plan for the rebuilding of the City. Although it was not adopted, Wren was still commissioned to design 52 of the new City churches and the new St Paul’s Cathedral, his masterpiece. As Surveyor General of the King’s Works from 1669 he designed Kensington Palace, vast new wings at Hampton Court, the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich and the Royal Hospital at Chelsea.

Samuel Pepys (1633–1703)

Civil servant and diarist. Born in London, the son of a City tailor, Pepys rose to become the most senior civil servant in the Admiralty and an important figure in the history of British naval administration. But it is his intimate and acutely observed diary that has made him such a well-known and popular historical figure. The diary covers the years 1660 to 1669 and is a mine of information on the London of the period. It is particularly important for its vivid eye-witness accounts of two cataclysmic events in London’s history: the Great Plague of 1665, which killed nearly 100,000 people, perhaps one-seventh of the city’s population, and the Great Fire of 1666. Pepys himself watched the City burn from an alehouse on Bankside.

The Adam brothers (18th century)

Architects and interior designers. William Adam, a leading Edinburgh architect and laird of Blair Adam, had four sons, three of whom he trained as architects. His second son Robert (1728–92) was by far the most talented. After he had opened an office in London in 1758, Robert became the leading neoclassical architect and interior designer of his day, ably assisted by his brothers, James and William. The Adam brothers were responsible for the Adelphi, Apsley House, Home House in Portman Square, Portland Place and Chandos House.

Dr Samuel Johnson (1709–84)

Writer, scholar and brilliant talker. Johnson was born in Lichfield but lived in London from his late 20s onwards. With his bulky figure and rasping Midlands voice he was familiar to all who frequented the taverns and coffee houses of Fleet Street and the drawing rooms of fashionable London society. In 1763 he met James Boswell (1740–95), dissolute son of a Scottish judge and himself a lawyer. Boswell recorded much of Johnson’s pungent and witty conversation and later used it as the basis of his marvellous biography of the great man. It included Johnson’s often-quoted remark: ‘When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.’

John Nash (1752–1835)

Architect. The son of a Lambeth engineer and millwright, Nash’s early career was chequered; in 1783 he was even declared bankrupt. But re-established and with the patronage of George III’s eldest son, the Prince Regent, Nash became the architectural king of Regency London, responsible for Regent’s Park and its terraces, Regent Street, Buckingham Palace, Marble Arch and the Haymarket Theatre.

Charles Dickens (1812–70)

Novelist and social campaigner. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens was brought to London by his parents when he was 10. Not long afterwards his father was imprisoned for debt in the notorious Marshalsea debtors’ prison and Dickens found himself put to work in a blacking warehouse, though he was still only 12 years old. Later Dickens found more congenial employment as a reporter and then, while still in his 20s, became a popular and successful novelist. He had an obsession with London and all its horrors and degradations, and regularly tramped the streets going into the dingiest and most dangerous districts in search of scenes and characters for his stories. Today Victorian, or rather Dickensian, London lives on in his still popular novels.

Kings and queens

Events and places are often dated by reference to kings and queens. For those of you who are rusty on your royals, here is a quick reminder of their regnal dates – from William the Conqueror to our own Elizabeth II.

William the Conqueror

1066–87

William II

1087–1100

Henry I

1100–35

Stephen

1135–54

Henry II

1154–89

Richard I

1189–99

John

1199–1216

Henry III

1216–72

Edward I

1272–1307

Edward II

1307–27

Edward III

1327–77

Richard II

1377–99

Henry IV

1399–1413

Henry V

1413–22

Henry VI

1422–61

Edward IV

1461–83

Edward V

1483

Richard III

1483–85

Henry VII

1485–1509

Henry VIII

1509–47

Edward VI

1547–53

Mary

1553–58

Elizabeth I

1558–1603

James I

1603–25

Charles I

1625–49

Commonwealth

1649–53

Protectorate

1653–60

Charles II

1660–85

James II

1685–89

William and Mary

1689–1702

Anne

1702–14

George I

1714–27

George II

1727–60

George III

1760–1820

George IV

1820–30

William IV

1830–37

Victoria

1837–1901

Edward VII

1901–10

George V

1910–36

Edward VIII

1936

George VI

1936–52

Elizabeth II

1952–

CATEGORIES OF WALKS

PANORAMA WALKS

Dulwich:

North over south London as far as the City

Greenwich:

North over Canary Wharf and the City

Highgate to Hampstead:

South over the City, north London and the West End

Regent’s Park:

South over the West End

Richmond:

West to Windsor Castle and east to St Paul’s Cathedral

WATERSIDE WALKS

River Thames (East to West):

Greenwich

Wapping to Limehouse

Bankside and Southwark

Lambeth and the South Bank

Barnes to Fulham

Kew to Hammersmith

Syon Park to Strawberry Hill

Richmond

Hampton Court

Windsor and Eton

Canal:

Regent’s Canal

Boating Lakes:

Central Parks (Serpentine in Hyde Park)

Regent’s Park

Dulwich

SHOPPING AND MARKET WALKS

Bayswater to Belgravia:

Bayswater Road art market, Harrods and Knightsbridge

Chelsea:

King’s Road

Clerkenwell:

Exmouth Market

Covent Garden:

Covent Garden, Jubilee Market

Inns of Court:

London Silver Vaults

Islington:

Camden Passage antiques market

Kensington:

Kensington High Street

Marylebone:

Marylebone High Street, St Christopher’s Place, Oxford Street

Mayfair:

Piccadilly Market, Bond Street, Burlington and Royal Arcades

Notting Hill:

Portobello Road Market

Regent’s Canal:

Camden Lock Market

PARKS AND GARDENS WALKS

Barnes to Fulham:

Barn Elms Park, Bishop’s Park including gardens of Bishop’s Palace

Bayswater to Belgravia:

Kensington Gardens

Central Parks:

St James’s Park, Green Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens

Chelsea:

Ranelagh Gardens, Chelsea Physic Garden

Dulwich:

Dulwich Park and Sydenham Hill Nature Reserve

Hampton Court:

Palace Gardens, Bushy Deer Park and Waterhouse Garden in Bushy Park

Kew to Hammersmith:

Kew Gardens, grounds of Chiswick House

Greenwich:

Greenwich Park

Highgate to Hampstead:

Waterlow Park, Hampstead Heath and grounds of Kenwood House

Kensington:

Holland Park

Syon Park to Strawberry Hill:

Syon Park, Marble Hill Park

Regent’s Park:

Regent’s Park

Richmond:

Richmond Park, grounds of Ham House, Petersham Meadows

Westminster and St James’s:

St James’s Park, Green Park

COUNTRY HOUSE WALKS

Highgate to Hampstead:

Kenwood House, Fenton House

Kew to Hammersmith:

Chiswick House

Richmond:

Ham House

Syon Park to Strawberry Hill:

Syon House, Marble Hill House, Strawberry Hill

ROYALTY WALKS

Bayswater to Belgravia:

Kensington Palace

Central Parks:

Kensington Palace

The City (East):

Tower of London

Hampton Court:

Hampton Court Palace

Westminster and St James’s:

St James’s Palace, Clarence House, Buckingham Palace

Windsor and Eton:

Windsor Castle

VILLAGE WALKS

Barnes to Fulham:

Barnes

Dulwich:

Dulwich Village

Greenwich:

Greenwich

Hampton Court:

Hampton

Highgate to Hampstead:

Highgate and Hampstead

Kew to Hammersmith:

Kew and the riverside communities of Strand-on-the-Green, Chiswick Mall and Hammersmith Upper Mall

Richmond:

Petersham and Ham

Syon Park to Strawberry Hill:

Isleworth and Twickenham

CIRCULAR WALKS

Kensington

Chelsea

Mayfair Westminster and St James’s

Bloomsbury

Covent Garden

Inns of Court

Fleet Street and St Paul’s (The City West)

The City (East)

Windsor and Eton

Richmond

Greenwich

CONNECTING WALKS

Central Parks – Kensington

Regent’s Canal – Islington

Regent’s Canal – Clerkenwell

Westminster and St James’s – Central Parks

Lambeth and the South Bank – Inns of Court

Bankside and Southwark – City (East)

Bankside and Southwark – Wapping to Limehouse

City (East) – Wapping to Limehouse

NEARLY CONNECTING WALKS

(One stop on the Underground line unless otherwise stated)

Notting Hill – Kensington

Notting Hill – Bayswater to Belgravia

Mayfair – Covent Garden

Bloomsbury – Covent Garden

Soho to Trafalgar Square – Mayfair

Soho to Trafalgar Square – Covent Garden

Lambeth and the South Bank – Bankside and Southwark

Inns of Court – Bankside and Southwark

Clerkenwell – Fleet Street and St Paul’s (short walk down Aldersgate Street and St Martin’s Le Grand)

Wapping to Limehouse – Greenwich (six stops on the Docklands Light Rail)

Richmond – Kew to Hammersmith

WALKS IN ORDER OF LENGTH (MILES/KILOMETRES)

2/3.2

Covent Garden

2/3.2

Inns of Court

2/3.2

Clerkenwell

2/3.2

Fleet Street and St Paul’s (The City West)

2½/4

Marylebone

2½/4

Bloomsbury

2½/4

Soho to Trafalgar Square

2½/4

Bankside and Southwark

2¾/4.4

Kensington

3/4.8

Mayfair

3/4.8

Westminster and St James’s

3/4.8

Lambeth and the South Bank

3/4.8

Islington

3/4.8

The City (East)

3¼/5.2

Wapping to Limehouse

3½/5.6

Notting Hill

3½/5.6

Regent’s Park

3½/5.6

Hampton Court

3½/5.6

Barnes to Fulham

3½/5.6

Greenwich

3½/5.6

Dulwich

3¾/6

Chelsea

3¾/6

Windsor and Eton

4/6.4

Bayswater to Belgravia

4/6.4

Central Parks

4½/7.2

Syon Park to Strawberry Hill

4½/7.2

Richmond

4½/7.2

Kew to Hammersmith

4¾/7.6

Regent’s Canal

6½/10.5

Highgate to Hampstead

KEY TO MAPS

Route of walk

Path

Railway line

Underground station

Railway station

Docklands Light Rail station

Church

Public toilets

Abbreviations

RD

Road

ST

Street

AV.

Avenue

PL.

Place

SQ.

Square

TERR.

Terrace

WLK

Walk

GDNS

Gardens

CRES.

Crescent

YD

Yard

CT

Court

MKT

Market

GRN

Green

DRI.

Drive

PASS.

Passage

BLDGS

Buildings

APP.

Approach

ST

Saint

GT

Great

PK

Park

W.

West

E.

East

S.

South

UP.

Upper

LWR

Lower

LIT.

Little

NOTTING HILL

Located north of Kensington in west London, Notting Hill is the scene of the Notting Hill Carnival and the world-famous Portobello Road antiques market. The walk starts at the northern end of the district, runs the whole length of the Golborne Road and Portobello Road markets and then explores steep Notting Hill itself, the site of London’s finest Victorian housing development. The final part of the walk climbs leafy Holland Park and crosses Campden Hill Square to the top of Campden Hill before returning to Notting Hill Gate.

START:

Westbourne Park Station (Hammersmith & City and Circle Underground lines).

FINISH:

Notting Hill Gate Station (District, Circle and Central Underground lines).

LENGTH:

3⅓ miles (5.6 kilometres).

TIME:

2⅓ hours.

REFRESHMENTS:

Pubs and a few cafés throughout the route, especially in the early stages and at the end of the walk on Notting Hill Gate, where you will also find the usual high street fast-food restaurants. The Windsor Castle pub on Campden Hill near the finish does good food and has a nice beer garden.

NOTE:

Best walked early on a Saturday when the Portobello Road antiques market is open but not too busy.

Come out of Westbourne Park Station and turn left into the Great Western Road. Go under the Westway overhead motorway and take the first turning on the left into Elkstone Road just beyond the Big Table furniture co-operative. Follow this road for some distance, between commercial buildings on the left and Meanwhile Gardens on the right; then railway tracks on the left (the main line to the West Country) and the 30-storey Trellick Tower on the right. Turn left, crossing over the bridge into Golborne Road. The Saturday market here trades in old clothes and every conceivable kind of junk and is really an extension of the main Portobello Road Market, which begins further along the route.

The antiques market in Notting Hill’s Portobello Road has been going since around 1950 and draws visitors from all over the world to this enduringly fashionable part of west London.

Portobello Road Market

Walk along Golborne Road and just beyond the entrance to Bevington Road on the left, turn left into Portobello Road – the less affluent end of both the market and the Notting Hill district. This part of Notting Hill was not developed until the 1860s, and the market started (unofficially) at around the same time. Portobello Road was originally a farm track leading from the village of Kensington Gravel Pits (the original name of Notting Hill Gate) to Portobello Farm, which stood about where you are now. The farm was named in the 18th century in honour of the 1739 naval battle when the British defeated the Spanish off Puerto Bello in the Gulf of Mexico.

Continue along Portobello Road past the Spanish school (built as a Franciscan convent in 1862) on your right. Cross Oxford Gardens and walk down to Portobello Green under the Westway, opened in 1970. At this point the quality of the merchandise in the market begins to improve. There are also some bric-à-brac stalls, a foretaste of the antiques to come. From the Westway here to the junction with Colville Terrace and Elgin Crescent, Portobello Road is an ordinary shopping centre and thriving food market, though it has an unusual collection of shops – mostly fairly smart street fashion plus the occasional art gallery and a tattoo studio at No. 261.

At the end of August each year over a million revellers pack into Portobello Road and the surrounding streets to enjoy the carnival procession. The Notting Hill Carnival started as a school pageant in 1966 and then developed, not always happily, into today’s massive Caribbean jamboree with decorated floats, steel bands and masqueraders in extravagant costumes. Many people from former British colonies in the West Indies settled in this area during the 1950s. Spanish and Portuguese communities followed.

The proper antiques market starts at the Colville Terrace/Elgin Crescent junction and continues all the way up the hill across Westbourne Grove to Chepstow Villas. In several places it has expanded into adjoining streets, in particular Westbourne Grove. Antiques, the main attraction of today’s Portobello Road Market, were not a feature until 1948 when dealers moved here after the closure of the Caledonian antique market in Islington. Virtually anything can be bought here, and the prices are not outrageous.

Victorian housing boom

At the end of the market turn right into Chepstow Villas. On the left No. 39 has a plaque to Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian nationalist who sought refuge in England following the failure of Hungary’s 1848–9 revolution against its Austrian masters. The house must have been very newly built then because work on the street did not start until the late 1840s. At the junction go straight across into Kensington Park Gardens. On the left No. 7 has a plaque to Sir William Crookes, the scientist who, among other things, discovered the metal thallium in 1861. Half-way along on both sides of the street there are gates leading into large communal gardens (access for residents only). Notting Hill has 13 of these communal gardens and Ladbroke Square Gardens (on the left) is the largest in London. They were included in the original Victorian landscaping scheme in order to entice prospective purchasers out of the West End.

At the end of Kensington Park Gardens, cross Ladbroke Grove and walk to the right of St John’s Church (1845) into Lansdowne Crescent. In pious Victorian England a church was as important a part of the infrastructure of a new and untried residential area as drains and street lighting, and many churches – like St John’s – were built before the houses. St John’s predecessor on this marvellous hilltop site was a racecourse grandstand. Having built a few houses that had not proved the financial success he had hoped, the landlord of the area, James Weller Ladbroke, let some land to a local man who had the bright idea of laying out a racecourse round Notting Hill, using the hill itself as a natural grandstand. The racecourse opened in 1837, but was forced to close four years later when jockeys refused to ride on it, claiming the heavy going made it too dangerous.

Follow Lansdowne Crescent round to the right. Then turn left into Lansdowne Rise, which plunges down the western slope of Notting Hill. At the bottom, turn right into Clarendon Road and then first left into Portland Road. Keep going straight ahead to Walmer Road at the bottom, passing on the way Hippodrome Mews, named after the racecourse. Turn left on Walmer Road.

A few yards further along on the left an old pottery kiln stands by the roadside. As its plaque indicates, it is a relic of the potteries and brickfields that 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 one of the most notorious slums in the whole of Victorian England. Avondale Park behind you, opened in 1892, was then a vast pit of stinking slurry known as the Ocean. Somehow all this squalor existed until the 1870s side by side with the middle-class suburb on the slopes of the hill above.

Walk on to the end of Walmer Road. Ahead on the left Pottery Lane connected the Potteries district to the main road (then the Uxbridge Road, now Holland Park Avenue). Keep right here and continue on into Princedale Road, turning first right into Penzance Place. At St James’s Gardens, turn left and then right to St James’s Church. The plaque on the church railings mentions that while most of the square was built in the four years after 1847, it was not actually finished until 15 years later because of shortage of funds, a good indication of how costly and risky these huge middle-class Victorian developments were. Shortage of money also meant that the church was not given the spire that its architect, Lewis Vulliamy, had designed for it.

Leafy Campden Hill

At the church turn left into Addison Avenue, the most stylish street in this development, and then left again into Queensdale Road, which leads into Norland Square. Norland House, which once stood here, was a small country house with a 50-acre estate owned by the royal clockmaker, Benjamin Vulliamy, father of the architect Lewis Vulliamy.

At the end of Queensdale Road turn right into Princedale Road (where Oz magazine was based at the time of the police raid following its notorious ‘Schoolkids’ issue) and then left into Holland Park Avenue (Lidgate’s, the leading organic butchers, is on the left). At Holland Park Station go over the crossing and continue up Holland Park Avenue past the statue of St Volodymyr, which was put up by London’s Ukrainian community in 1988. Cross the entrances to Holland Walk (leads to Kensington High Street) and Aubrey Road and turn right into steep Campden Hill Square, begun in 1826. Turner painted sunsets from the garden in the middle, and John McDouall Stuart, his health broken by hardships suffered in the first official crossing of the Australian continent, died at No. 9 in 1866.

Views from the hill

At the top of the square turn right and then left into Aubrey Road. On the right Aubrey House, set in its own two-acre (0.8-hectare) walled garden, is the last of several country houses that once existed on Campden Hill. Lady Mary Coke, eccentric authoress of entertaining diaries, lived here from 1767 to 1788. One entry relates how her cow – called Miss Pelham – escaped from the grounds one day ‘and went very near as far as London before I heard of her. I believe she thinks my place too retired, for she was found among a great herd of cattle.’ Aubrey House is still privately owned and fetches high prices whenever it changes hands.

At the house turn left along Aubrey Walk, which will take you to Campden Hill Road. Cross the road (Windsor Castle pub to the right) into Kensington Place. Far ahead you can see the BT Tower rising above the West End, exactly three miles from where you are standing. Half-way down Kensington Place at the Fox Primary School turn left into Hillgate Street. This leads through Hillgate Village, a grid of narrow streets and small but elegant mid-19th-century houses, to Notting Hill Gate. Notting Hill Gate was originally a hamlet in the parish of Kensington called Kensington Gravel Pits. The area was famed for its gravel quarries, hence the name. When the turnpike road system was developed in the 18th century, a toll gate was built across the main road running through the village. As Kensington Gravel Pits expanded into the 19th-century suburb of Notting Hill, the main road just here was renamed Notting Hill Gate.

On Notting Hill Gate, turn right and walk along to Notting Hill Gate Station, built roughly where the old toll gate used to stand. The gate was removed in the 1860s (along with other surviving gates in London) when road maintenance passed into local authority control. At that time Notting Hill Gate was a twisting shopping street with a bottleneck at the gate/station point. A century later demolition of protruding buildings on both north and south sides transformed it into the wide, straight boulevard we have today. The walk ends at the tube station.

KENSINGTON

Kensington is an historic village suburb in west London, close to Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens. It is spread out on the south-facing slope of Campden Hill and bisected by its fashionable High Street. While Kensington Palace was in use gentry and nobility dominated the area, but when the court moved out, artists and writers settled here. This circular walk starts and finishes in Kensington High Street and includes the parish church, Kensington’s two historic squares (one over 300 years old), Holland House and Park, the former Melbury Road artists’ colony centred on the Leighton House Museum and Art Gallery, and many attractive streets and houses in a rich variety of architectural styles.

START AND FINISH:

High Street Kensington Station (Circle and District Underground lines).

LENGTH:

2¾ miles (4.4 kilometres).

TIME:

2 hours.

REFRESHMENTS:

Restaurants in Kensington High Street and pubs en route. Look out for the Scarsdale Tavern in Edwardes Square, about half-way through the walk, the café in Holland Park after about two-thirds of the walk, and the Elephant & Castle pub near the end.

Come out of Kensington High Street Station, turn right on to the High Street and walk along towards the traffic lights. Take the first turning on the right into Derry Street. No. 99 towards the end on the right is the entrance to the famous roof gardens, sometimes open to the public, built over the Derry and Toms department store in the 1930s. Derry Street leads on into the north-west corner of Kensington Square – one of the oldest and prettiest squares in London. By the mid-1600s wealthy people were moving to the then country village of Kensington in search of a healthier lifestyle. This square was developed in the 1660s to meet the growing demand. When Kensington Palace was built a few years later the square and surrounding houses were naturally taken over by courtiers. After the court left, Kensington became known as the Old Court Suburb.

Continue walking along the right hand (western) side of the square. Many well-known people have lived here over the years. No. 33 on the right, for example, was once the home of the actress Mrs Patrick Campbell, who dominated the London stage in the 1880s and 1890s. Turn left at the bottom of the square. The utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill lived in No. 18 in 1837–51, and it was here that his maid inadvertently used the manuscript of the historian Thomas Carlyle’s first major book to light the fire. Nothing daunted, Carlyle wrote it again and the book, The History of the French Revolution, was published in 1837.

Kensington New Town

Nos 11 and 12 are the only original 17th-century houses in the square to have survived (note the names of former occupants painted on the carved porch of No. 11). Beyond these houses take the first right into Ansdell Street. At the end of the street turn left into St Alban’s Grove. Cross Stanford Road and Victoria Road and continue into Victoria Grove, turning right into Launceston Place. These streets form a self-contained development known as Kensington New Town, which was built over market gardens in the 1840s by John Inderwick, a wealthy tobacconist and pipe-maker. He owned a clay mine in the Crimea and introduced meerschaum pipes into England. Until fairly recently there was an Inderwick’s tobacconist’s in Carnaby Street in London’s West End. The small but elegant houses on his development have always been popular, and demand will no doubt remain high so long as the New Town remains an official conservation area.

Before Launceston Place reaches Cornwall Gardens turn right through an archway into Kynance Mews, still paved with granite setts from the days of horse and carriage. Opposite No. 24 turn right up some steps into Victoria Road and then turn left by Christ Church into Eldon Road, named after a large house called Eldon Lodge that once stood near here. Opposite the church, No. 52 was the studio home of royal art tutor Edward Corbould in the 19th century. Corbould’s studio is on the left side of the house: the large north-facing roof light can be glimpsed through the street window. At the end of Eldon Road take a left turn into Stanford Road and go through the passageway at the end of the cul-de-sac into Cornwall Gardens.

Fashionable flats

The whole character of the area changes here as the pretty, countrified houses of Kensington New Town give way to the heavy, stuccoed terraces and sombre apartment blocks of High Victorian South Kensington. These blocks were built mainly in the later 19th century when living in flats became the fashionable thing to do among London’s ever-expanding middle classes. From the property developer’s point of view they also meant that more people could be accommodated on a given amount of land, thus generating more profit.

The Elephant & Castle pub in Holland Street, one of several good pubs passed on the Kensington walk, is an ideal place to stop for a refreshing drink as you approach the end of the route.

Turn right when you come to Cornwall Gardens and then turn left. On the left the novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett lived in the corner house from 1934 until her death in 1969. Ahead to the left is a house (No. 52) with a plaque in memory of Joaquim Nabuco, Brazilian ambassador to Britain at the turn of the 20th century (he was here only until 1902, not 1905 as the plaque says). Nabuco, although a conservative, had been mainly responsible for the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888. Some years before that he had spent time as a newspaper correspondent in Britain.

Before you reach Nabuco’s house turn right down the slope of Lexham Walk, cross Cornwall Gardens Walk and enter Lexham Gardens. Keep to the right round Lexham Gardens. Take the first right turn and then turn right again into Marloes Road. Roughly opposite the entrance to Kensington Green, a housing development covering the site of St Mary Abbots Hospital (where Jimi Hendrix died) and the former Kensington workhouse, turn left into Stratford Road and follow the road as it winds left and right. When you get to the junction with Abingdon Road turn right and then first left into Scarsdale Villas. At the end, cross Earl’s Court Road into Pembroke Square walking to the right of Rassell’s nursery. Turn right out of Pembroke Square into Edwardes Square (Scarsdale Tavern on the right) and take a left turn, walking along the south side of the square past the Temple (the gardener’s lodge).

French connection

Edwardes Square is the second of Kensington’s historic squares, although it is a century younger than Kensington Square. It was built on land belonging to William Edwardes, 2nd Lord Kensington, between 1811 and 1819 when the Napoleonic Wars were raging. The developer was French by birth and had kept his French name – Louis Léon Changeur. As building progressed, Changeur’s ancestry helped to generate the rumour that he was a Napoleonic agent and that the square was being built not for the harmless representatives of the professional middle classes, but for the officers of Napoleon’s army. The feared French invasion failed to materialize, so Changeur’s loyalty to his adopted country – and the absurd rumour regarding it – was never put to the test.