Notting Hill history

There is reference to Knottynghull in the Middle Ages, but it is not known how the name came about. It was all farmland until the 19th century apart from a small village called Kensington Gravel Pits near Notting Hill gate. Gravel and sand extraction had been carried on in the area since the 17th century. There were two large landholdings in the area: the Ladbroke estate and the Norland Estate. From the 1830s onwards, these estates were gradually developed into middle-class housing.

The Ladbroke family had owned land in the area for about a century before the expansion of London made it attractive for house development. (Other things were tried first – a racecourse, the Hippodrome, was built in 1838, but was unsuccessful and closed in 1841.) Thomas Alom was largely responsible for the design of the estate.

The Norland estate on the north side of Holland Park Avenue had belonged to the Greene and Vulliamy families. The estate was bought by Charles Richardson, a solicitor, in 1839 and developed by him until he went bankrupt in 1851. The development was then taken over by Robert Cantwell and others.

To the north, there were two large farms, Notting Barns farm and the Porto Bello farm. These were also developed into a residential area in the last decades of the 19th century. Porto Bello was a town in Mexico which Admiral Vernon captured from the Spaniards in 1739. Portobello Road was originally a horse market, trading in horses at the Hippodrome. When the Caledonian market was closed in 1948, the antique traders moved to Portobello Road.