About Notting Hill (from Wikipedia)

Notting Hill is an area in West London, England, and close to the north-western corner of Hyde Park. It lies within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Location

Notting Hill has never been an official parish, manor, postcode or other administratively defined area, but it is generally understood to be either:

that part of the historic parish of Kensington (now the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea) which falls north of Notting Hill Gate (broadly corresponding to the London postcodes W11 and W10 and a small part of Westminter's borough W2); or
just the W11 postcode area (with the more northerly W10 area called North Kensington in which may be found the lesser known manors of Notting Dale and Notting Barn). However, a part of the south western W11 post code area is rather referred to as the Holland Park area.
As often in London, a lot of enthusiastic debate flows around which area a street or sometimes, a side of a street, sits in. To the extent that some streets, including some within the Notting Hill area, do not share the same post code.

It's Character

Notting Hill has a reputation as an affluent and fashionable area; known for attractive terraces of large Victorian townhouses, and high-class shopping and restaurants (particularly around Westbourne Grove and Clarendon Cross). Many people who conform to such stereotypes are often referred to as "The Notting Hill Set", "The Notting Hillbillies", and "Trustafarians" (White rastafaris, but with a trust fund left by their parents or family). Politicians who appeal to such voters, mainly on the conservative right, are often referred to as such. Conservative leader David Cameron and shadow Chancellor George Osborne have been labelled as such, often pejoratively.

However, it has an equally thriving "alternative" culture, exemplified by the numerous second-hand music stores around Notting Hill Gate. There are also areas of social deprivation to the north, sometimes referred to as "North Kensington", or the "Ladbroke Grove" area, from the name of the same street. Notting Hill is a cosmopolitan district particularly known as the location for the annual Notting Hill Carnival, which takes place in August. This is a large street festival and celebration of Caribbean culture, centred on parades of elaborately costumed dancers and colourfully decorated floats. The carnival was originally established in the 1960s as a positive response to tensions between the recently arrived immigrant community and the majority community, which culminated in the Notting Hill race riots.

Notting Hill is also home to the Portobello Road antique market, which has become a major London tourist attraction. The market takes place each Saturday and attracts antique buyers and sellers, as well as tourists. In recent years the growth of the market and increasing tourist quota has led some to claim that quality has declined.

The area came to international attention with the release of the successful Hollywood movie of the same name. Notting Hill (1999) stars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. The movie uses the characteristic features of the area as a backdrop to the action, including the Portobello Road antiques market and enclosed square gardens.

Notting Hill History

The hill from which Notting Hill takes its name is probably the hill upon which Ladbroke Grove is built; its summit is near the point where St John's Church now stands. Alternatively, some writers suggest that Notting Hill could refer to nearby Campden Hill, but the local place name and map evidence states the contrary. The name "Notting Hill" very old, and is derived from the Saxon personal name Cnotta, as in Cnotta's Hill.

In early times, the area was entirely rural, and it fell within the northern district of the parish of Kensington. Records show it as an early manor by the name of Notting Barns. The name Notting Hill came to prominence when a turnpike gate was constructed at the foot of the hill on the main road from London to Uxbridge, which is now known as Oxford Street, Bayswater Road and Holland Park Avenue along this part of its route. The point at which the turnpike gate stood was known as Notting Hill Gate. The gate was there to stop people passing along the road without paying. The proceeds were applied towards the maintenance of this important road. The gate was removed in the 19th century.

There is, therefore, a difference between modern Notting Hill (which is the area surrounding the hill) and Notting Hill Gate. Both are within the locality of Notting Hill.

When the westward expansion of London reached Bayswater in the early 19th century, the main landowner in Notting Hill was the Ladbroke family, and from the 1820s they began to lay out streets and houses, with a view to turning the area into a fashionable suburb of the capital (although the development did not get seriously under way until the 1840s). Many of these streets bear the Ladbroke name, including Ladbroke Grove (the main north-south axis of the area) and Ladbroke Square (which is the largest private garden square in London).

The original idea was to call the district Kensington Park, and other roads (notably Kensington Park Road and Kensington Park Gardens) are remainders of this. This is also the reasoning behind the choice of PARK as the name of the local telephone exchange (which was once located on the Portobello Road at the back of Kensington Park Road; although it has for many years been located in Moscow Road, Bayswater, and is the origin of the classic Notting Hill telephone prefix 727 (now 7727) on the principle illustrated here since the letters PAR corresponded with the numbers 727 on old telephone dials.

The principal architect of this plan was the Ladbroke family surveyor, Thomas Allom; and its distinctive feature was that instead of houses being set around a garden square, separated from the houses by a road around the square, houses were placed around the edge of the garden square; with the road on the other side of the house. This meant that the houses had direct access at the back to a secluded communal garden, to which people on the street did not have access; and which could not even be seen from the street (mostly). These communal gardens continue to provide the area with much of its attraction for the richest householders.

In 1837 the Hippodrome racecourse was laid out. The racecourse ran around the hill, and bystanders were expected to watch from the summit of the hill. However, it was not a success as it became waterlogged, and was closed in 1841, after which houses were built on the site. The crescent shaped roads which circumvent the hill (Blenheim Crescent, Elgin Crescent, Stanley Crescent, Cornwall Crescent, Landsdowne Crescent), were built over the circular racecourse tracks.

The Notting Hill houses were large, but they did not immediately succeed in enticing the very richest Londoners, who tended to live closer to the centre of London in Mayfair or Belgravia. Rather, the houses appealed to the upper middle class, who could live there in Belgravia style at lower prices. In the opening chapter of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga novels, he housed the Nicholas Forsytes "in Ladbroke Grove, a spacious abode and a great bargain" (The Man of Property, Chapter 1, published 1906).

In common with many parts of London, the reputation of the district evolved significantly over the course of the 20th century. As middle class households ceased to employ servants, the large Notting Hill houses lost their market and were increasingly split into multiple occupations. In the postwar period the name Notting Hill evoked a down-at-heel area of cheap lodgings, epitomised by the notorious racketeering landlord Peter Rachman. It was documented in the famous 1950s Southam Street photographs of Roger Mayne, and features as a backdrop to novels by G.K. Chesterton (The Napoleon of Notting Hill), Colin Macinnes (Absolute Beginners) and Michael Moorcock (the Jerry Cornelius quartet). The area is also the setting of the Rita Tushingham movie The Knack (and how to get it) (1965).

By the 1980s, single-occupation houses began to return to favour with families who could afford to occupy them, and Notting Hill is now one of London's smartest and most desirable areas. Notting Hill is characterised by well-maintained stucco-fronted pillar-porched houses, private gardens, communal gardens, access to the public parks at Holland Park and Kensington Gardens, and smart shops. The area's newer, wealthy residents are satirised in Rachel Johnson's 2006 novel Notting Hell, which is set in grand houses surrounding a fictional communal garden.