BARRETTS’ BLOG

Finsbury Park is also called Stroud Green. It was mainly neglected marshland until some large country houses were built there in the 19th century. Seven Sisters Road is named after a group of elm trees which used to stand at the Tottenham end. When train lines were put through in 1870, the area was substantially developed for residential and industrial use. Finsbury Park, which is 115 acres in size, was created in 1869. Finsbury Park is one of the first publicly owned parks when it was opened in 1869. It contains 115 acres of land. The smaller Hornsey Park once visited by Richard III, forms part of it.

Lowndes Square and Lowndes Street form the boundary with Belgravia which is further east. Lowndes Square is mainly comprised of 1930s mansion blocks. Lowndes Street is partly commercial but contains terraces of stucco fronted houses at the southern end of the street as well as Chelsea House, a large Edwardian mansion block. Cadogan Place off Lowndes Street contains flats and houses backing onto gardens next to Sloane Street which also contains flats.

Knightsbridge continues on the other side of Sloane Street with the area dominated by Harrods on Brompton Road. The surrounding streets - Hans Crescent, Hans Road and Basil Street - contain large red-brick late-Victorian mansion blocks. Hans Place is a square with its own private gardens overlooked by large late-Victorian houses in the Dutch style. Walton Place nearby has earlier Victorian houses in white stucco facades. There is an entrance into Pont Street Mews, which contains smaller cottages. Beaufort Gardens contains more late Victorian terraced houses. Beauchamp Place, which is the western boundary for this part of Knightsbridge, is mainly commercial, but with some flats above shops. Brompton Place contains cottages.

Walton Street runs south west to Fulham Road and the area to the north is still Knightsbridge. The first few streets after Beauchamp Place are Ovington Square, Gardens and Mews. Ovington Square contains tall terraced houses built in the 1840s with white stucco facades. Ovington Gardens has similar but slightly smaller properties. There are quaint cottages in Ovington Mews. In Yeoman’s Row, also a mews, there is a mixture of period and modern cottages. Next come “the Egertons” - Egerton Gardens, Place, Terrace. Mews and Crescent. Egerton Garden Mews contains more mews cottages. Egerton Place and Egerton Terrace contain mainly tall mansion blocks with red brick facades in the late-Victorian Dutch style. Egerton Crescent is a beautiful Georgian terrace of houses with stucco facades looking out over a private garden. The southern portion of Egerton Terrace also contains some good-looking stucco faced houses.

North of Brompton Road, Knightsbridge begins in the angle of Knightsbridge and Brompton Road. Park Mansions is a large mansion block near the corner. A large redevelopment has taken place in the area of Raphael Street and Lancelot Place, providing new flats. Further west along Knightsbridge come Trevor Square and Trevor Place. These contain terraces of early Victorian houses. The area south of Trevor Square was formerly a Harrods depot and has been developed as flats. Further west along Knightsbridge from Trevor Place is the large residential development known as “The Knightsbridge” with blocks of flats and mews houses. South of this development area towards Brompton Road and you are back to a more traditional Victorian areas with Montpelier Square with brick-and-stucco Victorian houses facing on to private gardens. Nearby Montpelier Walk contains smaller houses. Cheval Place contains cottages as well as some blocks of flats and shops. Montpelier Place and Montpelier Street also contain moderate sized brick-and-stucco terraced houses.

Next along Brompton Road comes Brompton Square which contains terraces of Georgian houses overlooking narrow central gardens. Brompton Square was built earlier than the rest of Knightsbridge and has a quite separate feel. The houses back onto Ennismore Gardens. This contains large terraces of stone fronted Victorian houses overlooking private central gardens. Behind runs Ennismore Gardens Mews, which contains brightly painted cottages. The Kingston House block of flats constructed in the 1930s run across Ennismore Gardens. To the east is Rutland Gate which contains two separate squares. The North Square contains houses with brick and stucco facades. The southern square contains mainly stucco fronted houses. They are separated by Eresby House, another large mansion block. There are numerous small cottage properties in Rutland Gardens, Rutland Mews West, Rutland Street and Fairholt Street. Many of the houses are among the earliest in Knightsbridge. The Royal Albert Hall lies to the west and in Prince Consort Road there are five large mansion blocks called Albert Hall Mansions, built in the Dutch style and designed by Norman Shaw in the 1880s. Another mansion block, Albert Court, is in Prince Consort Road.

Knightsbridge got its name from a local bridge across the Westbourne river (near Albert Gate) where two knights fought a duel to the death in the 11th century. In fact, well into the 18th century, it remained a favoured place for duels, and it was also infested with highwaymen.

Kensington as a specific residential area comprises the streets on either side of Kensington High Street and Kensington Church Street from Notting Hill Gate in the north down to Cromwell Road. Starting at the focal point of the area, Kensington Palace, the most exclusive street in the whole area is Kensington Palace Gardens, which turns into Palace Green at the southern end. This is a mix of huge private houses and embassies. Between there and Kensington Church Street is the Vicarage Gate area with smaller but still impressive single houses and terraces in prestigious streets such as Palace Gardens Terrace, Brunswick Gardens and Vicarage Gardens. On the west side of Kensington Church Street comes Campden Hill Road and streets off it on either side, where very desirable houses are to be found in surprisingly secluded streets. Campden Hill Square which is west of Campden HIll Road contains some very large houses in terraces round the private gardens, and most of them have front gardens of their own. Nearby, there are other large houses as well as smaller cottages in the streets towards Holland Park Avenue. East of Campden HIll Road, tucked up just below Notting Hill Gate is an area called Hillgate Village with attractive cottagey-types of houses in streets such as Farm Place, Hillgate Place and Jameson Street. Further south the properties become more a mixture of flats and houses, traditional and modern, in streets such as Peel Street, Camden Street and Sheffield Terrace. There are more Victorian mansion blocks in this area towards the town hall, many in the red-brick ornate Dutch style favoured in late Victorian times. On the other side of Campden Hill Road, the area around Duchess of Bedford’s Walk where there used to be a large college has recently been redeveloped into houses and modern flats, called ‘the Phillimores’. The Phillimore estate itself is to the south, bordering on to Kensington high Street. This was developed by the Phillimore family in Victorian times but most of the freeholds have now been sold off. There are highly desirable houses to be found in tree-lined streets such as Phillimore Gardens, Phillimore Place and Essex Villas. Nearer the High Street, there are huge blocks of flats built between the Wars, such as Stafford Court

Moving south of Kensington High Street, the Queens Gate estate forms the eastern boundary with Knightsbridge. The streets here were not all built as a single development, but they have a consistency of style which makes them seem so. The streets are formed mainly of large terraces of stucco-fronted Victorian houses, most of which have long since been converted into flats. The streets are very wide by Kensington standards. The main streets are Queens Gate, Queens Gate Terrace, and Queens Gate Gardens. There are also mews behind the main streets such as Elvaston Mews and Queens Gate Mews. In the western corner near Gloucester Road is a separate exclusive area of terraces formed by Kensington Gate and Hyde Park Gardens and this area contains both huge detached houses and red brick mansion blocks.

On the other side of Gloucester Road is a more quaint area, with many winding streets containing attractive smaller-scale houses. The streets have a much more villagy feel, and the nicer ones include Launceston Place, Kynance Mews and Eldon Road. There are more tree-lined streets to the north, with attractive houses in Albert Place, Canning Place and surrounding streets. This area leads towards an area more dominated by late Victorian and 20th-century mansion blocks, such as Kensington Court and Kensington Court Gardens. But nearby is also Kensington Square, containing terraces of houses originally built when there was nothing around but farmland, and some of the houses go back to Jacobean times.

The tube line from High Street Kensington then cuts through the area, effectively dividing it. To the west, starting at Wrights Lane, there is a mixture of grand houses and imposing mansion blocks. Iverna Court contains a series of blocks of flats, leading to Abingdon Villas which contains impressive Victorian houses. Scarsdale Villas contains semi-detached large houses and terraces in stucco and brick. Lexham Gardens is made up of terraced houses, now almost exclusively converted into flats. There have been many infill developments in this area, such as Kensington Green, which contains small houses and flats.

The final part of Kensington proper, is the area around Pembroke Square and Edwards Square. This is just on the other side of Earls Court Road, but is still regarded as part of Kensington. Edwards Square is a beautiful example of Georgian houses which have avoided being badly spoiled by later developments. Pembroke Square is also an attractive and mainly original Georgian square. Pembroke Gardens contains mainly later Victorian properties in Dutch style.

Kensington was originally an Anglo-Saxon name, possibly meaning the farm - or “tun” - of Cynesige. In the 18th century it was still an entirely rural area mainly containing market gardens providing food for London to the east and nurseries for exotic fruits such as the newly discovered pineapples. Near present-day Kensington Church Street mansions for the well off began to be constructed from the 17th century onwards. William of Orange bought a house and arranged for Christopher Wren to turn it into Kensington Palace. At a time when plagues were quite frequent in London, the king regarded it as a more healthy place to live than Westminster. In the 19th century, the area was completely redeveloped to provide housing for the ever expanding London market. The Ladbroke, Norland, Phillimore and Smiths Charity Estates were all developed into streets and terraces of houses in the first half of the 19th century. Mid-century, the South Kensington estate belonging to the Commissioners for the Great Exhibition of 1851 was also turned into residential streets. Kensington was a “royal” borough to mark the fact that Queen Victoria was born at Kensington Palace. When Kensington was merged with Chelsea, the combined borough kept the “royal” title.

Off Upper Street and behind Camden Market there are streets with rows of Georgian houses such as Duncan Terrace and Colebrooke Road. Vincent Terrace has particularly desirable Georgian houses because they have views over the Grand Union Canal. There are smaller Georgian houses in Elia Street to the south. Some new houses have been constructed in nearby streets. Further along the canal Arlington Avenue and Square also contain terraces of attractive Georgian and Victorian houses. The main residential development in the area is City Road Basin and the Wenlock Basin for water-side living. There are a variety of developments to choose from – 1990s loft conversions to 21st century new builds – including Royle Building, Wenlock Building, Angel Waterside, Crystal Wharf, Wenlock Works and so on. Across New North Road there are more terraces of Victorian houses in the streets such as Elmore Street and Northchurch Street, but mixing with council blocks. Many of the former industrial buildings in the area have been converted into lofts and apartments.

Over Southgate Road is De Beauvoir Town, which is treated as part of Islington, although it is in fact in the London Borough of Hackney. De Beauvoir Square and De Beauvoir Road are the centre of this estate. The houses were all built in the 1840s in Victorian Gothic style (much like the Houses of Parliament). Surrounding streets such as Mortimer Road and Englefield Road contain similar houses.

Canonbury is the area between Canonbury and Essex Roads. Canonbury Square is the jewel of the area with its tall Regency houses round a central garden. There are other attractive Regency houses in Compton Terrace and Compton Road. Victorian properties are to be found in Alwyne Villas, Place and Road as well as neighbouring roads like Willow Bridge Road and Canonbury Park North. This area contains some very large houses down to cottage size. The large Marquess Estate (council) is within the angle of Essex Road and St Paul’s Road, and contains houses and maisonettes which have been upgraded for private ownership, and the area is now called New River Green. Just on the other side of St Paul’s Road towards Canonbury Station are more Victorian terraces in St Paul’s Place and Northampton Park.

Over the railway lines towards Highbury are more terraces of period houses. The streets just north west of Highbury Fields are the most sought-after, with Highbury Place, Crescent and Terrace containing Georgian terraces and some large mansions. North of Highbury Fields, the streets are mainly Victorian terraces. Instead of being flat fronted, many of the houses have bay windows and elaborate facades, especially in the area of Corsica Street and Baalbec St nearest to Highbury and Islington station. North of Highbury Fields is Highbury Hill which winds up towards Arsenal. There are large Victorian houses in this area, converted into flats. The attractiveness of the properties diminishes as you approach Arsenal. Further east, towards Green Lanes, the type of properties is mixed, with some Victorian houses in Aberdeen Park, as well as more modern houses and flats in the Aberdeen Road area, and large mansion blocks such as Taverner Square and Peckett Square. This leads up to another area of mainly Victorian houses in the Riversdale Road and Mountgrove Road area as far as Highbury New Park which winds its way through the area. At the top of Highbury New Park is the Quadrant Estate. It also contains large Victorian houses converted into flats. In the south is the Spring Gardens Estate. In the southern corner near Canonbury station is a series of streets running east from Petherton Road which are mainly Victorian terraces again.

Barnsbury is the area to the west of Liverpool Road to Caledonian Road. Not strictly in Barnsbury, but in the area between Liverpool Road and Upper Street there are attractive houses in Gibson Square and Milner Square, and terraces in nearby streets. Much of Barnsbury consists of similar streets of terraced houses built in the early Victorian period. Cloudesley Square and Street are the centre of the area. Richmond Avenue and the streets off it contain large terraced houses. The houses are in more Gothic style in Lonsdale Square. You will find Georgian terraces again in Brooksby and Bewdley Streets, and small cottages in Ripplevale Grove. Thornhill Square and Thornhill Crescent also contain large Regency houses.

The name was originally Gislandune, which meant Gisla’s Hill - presumably Gisla was a prominent Anglo Saxon landowner. It was a fashionable area in the 16th century, and Henry VIII owned two houses near Newington Green for his mistresses, and hunted nearby, probably for mistresses. Queen Elizabeth used to visit Sir Walter Raleigh at his house in Upper Street, and the Earl of Leicester at his place in Essex Road. In the 17th century Islington was the home of London’s main dairy farms. In the 18th century it was a place where Londoners went to have tea and a day out. The arrival of the Regent’s Canal and later the railways caused Islington to become more industrial, and a number of slums developed, although 19th-century Islington remained a prosperous area. In the early 20th century, only Barnsbury and Canonbury remained moderately prosperous. The creation of the Camden Passage antiques market in the 1960s made the area more fashionable again.

Holland Park Avenue, which becomes Notting Hill, divides the neighbourhood. It contains some of the largest houses in the area, with big houses with extensive front gardens in many cases. The houses are often stucco faced. Many of them have been converted into flats. Holland Park (the road) is a rectangle of streets with Holland Park Mews sandwiched between them. The houses in this road are among the most expensive in the area, particularly those with a view over the Park itself. They have a very individual appearance with cast iron and glass canopies over the entrances. The mews contains smaller cottages. Holland Park turns into Abbotsbury Road as it runs beside the Park and this contains a number of more modern houses and blocks of flats, such as Abbotsbury House. There are a series of cul-de-sacs, all called Abbotsbury Close, containing houses built in the 1960s along the western side of the road. At the southern end is Oakwood Court which is a series of Victorian mansion blocks. On the other side of Abbotsbury Road is Ilchester Place, a prestigious street, which contains wide red-brick 1950s-style houses with open front gardens, and with the attraction that they back onto Holland Park. The area of Melbury Road and Holland Park Road in the corner between Addison Road and Kensington High Street was an artists’ ghetto of the late Victorian era; and there are idiosyncratic houses by Norman Shaw and Halsey Ricardo in Melbury Road, and the former home of Lord Leighton is in Holland Park Road, and is open to the public. Some of these mansions are in their own grounds. Many of them have been converted into flats. Close to Kensington High Street there are blocks of flats such as Woodsford, Stavordale Lodge and Park Close. St Mary Abbots Terrace is a modern development of neo-Georgian houses, shoehorned in between Holland Park Road and Kensington High Street. Addison Road runs up to Addison Crescent. It contains some very large stucco fronted villas, as well as a terrace of Gothic-style Victorian houses. Monckton Court and Farley Court are blocks of flats in their own grounds. There are more detached and semi-detached houses in Addison Crescent. Addison Road continues north with large secluded houses in their own gardens. Somerset Square and Woodsford Square are 20th-century developments of houses and flats off the east side of Addison Road. Addisland Court is a 1930s mansion block at the top of Addison Road. Holland Villas Road runs behind Addison Road and contains similar sought-after villas. There are smaller houses in Upper Addison Gardens and Lower Addison Gardens which run off Holland Villas Road to Holland Road. These contain mainly terraced houses.

Holland Road itself is a mixture of houses and styles. Russell Road and Elsham Road have terraces of properties which are a mixture of houses, hotels and flats. There are mews cottages in Napier Place and Russell Gardens Mews. Holland Park continues on the north side of Holland Park Avenue. Royal Crescent is a set of terraces in Regency style, with white stucco faced houses opposite the Kensington Hilton hotel. Royal Crescent Mews stands behind the Crescent with period and modern cottages. St Ann’s Villas, which becomes St Ann’s Road, runs north from the centre of Royal Crescent. It contains a mixture of houses and purpose-built blocks of flats. Queensdale Road is the centre of this part of Holland Park. It contains some smaller terraced houses, as does Queensdale Place in a cul-de-sac off it to the east. Addison Avenue, which cuts across Queensdale Road, has some of the most sought-after houses in this part with small terraced houses. It is crossed by St James’s Gardens with its grand semi-detached houses.

Norland Square is just north of Holland Park Avenue and has its own garden and tennis Court. Behind it is Norland Place, a mews with cottages, leading into Princedale Road with a range of Victorian houses. Penzance Place and Portland Road also contain terraced Victorian houses in a variety of shapes and sizes. Clarendon Road which is parallel to Portland Road contains larger Victorian properties, but this is the edge of Notting Hill rather than Holland Park. Pottery Lane contains late Victorian terraced houses, and nearby is Hippodrome Mews which was a 1970s mews development. The strip between Holland Road and the railway line is arguably still part of Holland Park.

The area now known as Holland Park was originally part of the grounds of Holland House. This was a Jacobean mansion built for Sir Walter Cope, who was James I’s Chancellor. The house was built in 1606 and called Cope’s castle. It passed into the Holland family when Cope’s daughter married the Earl of Holland. He was executed by the Parliamentarians in the Civil War, and the house was confiscated, but it was restored to Lady Holland when Charles II came to the throne. Holland Park was built on part of the estate near Bayswater Road which was sold off for housing development in 1866 to pay for the family’s lavish lifestyle.

The heart of Hampstead is Hampstead High Street. Between here and Hampstead Heath is a jumble of small streets containing attractive houses from the Georgian through to the Edwardian era. New End and Cannon Place, for example, contain large family houses. And Gainsborough Gardens is a large circular road off Well Walk with late Victorian houses. Nearer the Heath are a number of large mansion blocks such as the Priors and Dellmore. Hampstead High Street runs into Heath Street. There are some residential streets on the west side of Heath Street going north, in squares such as Golden Yard and Mount Square, and streets such as Hampstead Grove and Admiral’s Walk. Two hospitals in this area, Mount Vernon Hospital in Frognal Rise and New End Hospital in Heath Street have been converted into flats. Further south roads widen out and Frognal Gardens and Frognal contain terraces of houses as early as the reign of Queen Anne. Even further south, there are large houses in the area toward Swiss Cottage, such as Fitzjohn’s Avenue and Maresfield Gardens. West of Hampstead Village towards Finchley Road there are large Victorian houses in the streets there such as West Heath Road, Platts Lane and Arkwright Road. The largest houses are in West Heath Road. There are attractive houses of all sorts to be found in this area, in streets such as Redington Gardens, Heath Drive and Ferncroft Avenue. The best houses are in Redington Road and Chesterford Gardens.

On the east side of Hampstead Village, just below Gainsborough Gardens, there are more Victorian terraces in streets such as Willow Road. Downshire Hill has earlier Regency houses. South Hill Park extends further round the bottom of the Heath towards Gospel Park. Here is the Mansfield Road conservation area with Victorian streets such as Constantine Road, Mansfield Road and Fleet Road. On the other side of the Fleet Road is the Royal Free Hospital and houses to the south of that, towards Belsize Park, are a mixture of family houses and council estates. There are desirable houses in the streets running from Fleet Road to Haverstock Hill, such as Parkhill, Upper Park Road and Lawn Road.

West Hampstead

There is a group of streets between Fortune Green and the railway line through to West Hampstead. These lie just south of Hampstead Cemetery. Gondar Gardens and Millfield Road contain some large Victorian houses, and there are also mansion blocks in Dunbar Gardens. “The Greeks” a set of streets named after heroes from the Iliad, such as Agamemnon Road and Achilles Road, contain family houses. The streets below Mill Lane, such as Sumatra and Narcissus Roads contain terraces of two and three-storey properties. Further to the west of Fortune Green, a group of streets off Minster Road, such as Somali and Asmara Roads, contain semi-detached properties. Cholmondeley Gardens is a popular mansion block on Fortune Green Road. There is a clutch of large mansion blocks in the area known as “the West End” in West End Lane and streets around it. These include Buckingham Mansions, Malborough Mansions, Yale Court and Harvard Court. Closer to Finchley Road Station, there are large detached houses in Alvanley Gardens and Lymington Road.

Between West End Lane and Kilburn High Road, south of the station, there are council estates, but also a group of streets between Sheriff and Hemstal Roads with attractive terraced properties. East of West End Lane, and still south of the station, there is an estate originally laid out by Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, Lord Mayor of Hampstead in late Victorian times. He was thwarted in his plan to build over Hampstead Heath, but created an estate called the Maryon Wilson Estate in this area. There are mansion blocks in Canfield and Fairfield Gardens, and others, and there are attractive flats and houses to be found in streets from Broadhurst Gardens down to Aberdare Gardens. There are large houses to be found in Priory Road and Priory Terrace.