Modern construction at Lansdowne Road. The original building was bombed in WW2
In 1852 one Richard Roy, a solicitor with some experience of building speculation in Cheltenham, acquired from the Ladbroke Estate a freehold parcel of undeveloped land between the south side of what is now Arundel Gardens and the north side of Ladbroke Gardens. In around 1862-3 he granted building leases for the houses on the south side of the street (numbers 1-47), and around the same time granted leases to three other builders to construct houses on the north side of the street.[1]
This was consistent with the usual pattern of development on the Ladbroke Estate, which was for builders to purchase the right to build on a parcel of land, on which they would contract to construct a certain number of houses. They were obliged to pay a ground rent to the landowner, but in return were granted a 99-year lease on the property.[1]
Nos. 2–14 Arundel Gardens were built by the builder Edwin Ware from 1862 to 1863. Other houses on the North side were built by the builders G. W. Simmonds, Leonard Cowling and a builder named Humphreys in 1863.[2]
The houses on both sides back onto elegant communal gardens, originally known as "pleasure grounds", or "paddocks", which are typical of the Ladbroke Estate so fall into the broad definition of garden squares.[1]
The original residents of the street tended to be middle or upper-middle class professionals, with around three or four servants, though a few were of a more bohemian character. The 1871 census shows the painter Anthony Montalba (1813–1884) living at 19 Arundel Gardens with four daughters, all artists, including Clara, Ellen, Hilda and Henrietta.[3] The Montalba sisters were regular contributors to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition during the 1870s.[4]
In 1880 Colonel W. C. Pond was living at 32 Arundel Gardens.[5] The 1881 census shows one Samuel Bennett, "editor and leader writer" living at number 13.[3]
World War 1
During World War I Arundel Gardens was hit by a bomb from a Zeppelin. An angry mob attacked the nearby Electric Cinema, believing that its German-born manager was signalling to the Zeppelin raiders from the roof of the cinema.[6]
World War 2
During World War II Arundel Gardens again suffered from bombing. One local resident, Vere Hodgson, recorded in her diary in 1940: "Went to see the houses in Lansdowne Road [next to Arundel Gardens] that caught it. Just heaps of rubble....right on the corner of Ladbroke Grove."[7]
1970s
In 1973 the Survey of London was published by the Greater London Council; its authors were not impressed by Arundel Gardens, which they saw as representing a decline from the elegance of earlier parts of the Ladbroke Estate. The street is described as "dull four-story ranges, that on the north side being faced with stucco and that on the south side being of stock brick with coarse flamboyant stucco enrichments".[1] The authors did however concede that the Eastward vista along the street was "agreeably closed" by attractive buildings built by Thomas Pocock on Kensington Park Road.[8]
Arundel Gardens today
Arundel Gardens, March 2010
The appearance of the street remains little changed today, except for numbers 43–47, on the corner of Ladbroke Grove, which have been replaced by a modern block of flats. Most of the remaining Victorian buildings have had extra mansard stories or loft conversions added, and most have been subdivided into flats, rather than remaining as single family residences for which purpose they were originally designed. A few of the stuccoed cornices are missing, and some of the houses on the south side have had their brickwork painted over. In 2008 the council planted a number of trees in the street. Otherwise the appearance of the street is much as it was when it was originally constructed.
A view of Arundel Gardens is shown in the 1999 film Notting Hill.
↑ The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO). Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881. Kew, Surrey, England. Class: RG11; Piece: 42; Folio: 80; Page: 4; Line: ; GSU roll: 1341010
Kemp Town Estate, also known as Kemp Town, is a 19th-century Regency architecture residential estate in the east of Brighton in East Sussex, England, UK. It consists of Arundel Terrace, Lewes Crescent, Sussex Square, Chichester Terrace, and the Kemp Town Enclosures. The estate was conceived and financed by Thomas Read Kemp, designed by Charles Busby and Amon Henry Wilds, and constructed by Thomas Cubitt. Work began in 1823 and it was completed in 1855. It has given its name to the larger Kemptown region of Brighton.
Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan and multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road Market. From around 1870, Notting Hill had an association with artists.
Notting Hill Gate is a London Underground station near Notting Hill, London, located on the street called Notting Hill Gate. On the Central line, it is between Holland Park to the west and Queensway to the east. On the District line and Circle line, it is between High Street Kensington and Bayswater stations. It is on the boundary of Travelcard Zone 1 and Zone 2.
Ladbroke Grove is an area and a road in West London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, passing through Kensal Green and Notting Hill, running north–south between Harrow Road and Holland Park Avenue.
Notting Hill Gate is one of the main thoroughfares of Notting Hill, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically the street was a location for toll gates, from which it derives its modern name.
Squares have long been a feature of London and come in numerous identifiable forms. The landscaping spectrum of squares stretches from those with more hardscape, constituting town squares —to those with communal gardens, for which London is a major international exponent, known as garden squares.
A communal garden is a garden for shared use by a number of local residents, typically in an urban setting. The term is especially used in the United Kingdom. The centre of many city squares and crescents are maintained as communal gardens.
Ladbroke could refer to:
Pinehurst Court is a portered Victorian mansion block at 1-9 Colville Gardens, just off Colville Terrace and near the Portobello Market in Notting Hill, London, England. The terrace was initially built in the 1870s by the builder George Frederick Tippett, as single family residences, but from the 1880s the houses began to be subdivided into flats. By 1928 the neighbourhood was described as "rapidly becoming poorer", and by 1935 as a "largely slum area". The gentrification of Notting Hill in the 1980s and 1980s greatly improved the character of the building, which now forms a part of one of London's most fashionable neighbourhoods.
Colville Gardens is a Victorian cul-de-sac street in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, located north of Colville Terrace and east of the Portobello Market in Notting Hill, London, England. It is bordered on the north side by All Saints' Church.
St John's Notting Hill is a Victorian Anglican church built in 1845 in Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill, London, designed by the architects John Hargrave Stevens (1805/6–1857) and George Alexander (1810–1885), and built in the Victorian Gothic style. Dedicated to St John the Evangelist, the church was originally built as the centrepiece of the Ladbroke Estate, a mid nineteenth century housing development designed to attract upper- and upper middle-class residents to what was then a largely rural neighbourhood in the western suburbs of London.
The Ladbroke Estate was a substantial estate of land owned by the Ladbroke family in Notting Hill, London, England, in the early 19th century that was gradually developed and turned into housing during the middle years of the century, as London expanded. Characterized by terraces of stuccoed brick houses backing onto large private garden squares, much of the original building remains intact today, and now forms the heart of one of London's most expensive and fashionable neighbourhoods.
Thomas Allason (1790–1852) was an English architect, surveyor and landscaper, noted in particular for his work at Connaught Square and the Ladbroke Estate in Kensington.
James Weller Ladbroke was a nineteenth-century landowner and the principal developer of the Ladbroke Estate, a substantial parcel of land in Notting Hill, London, England. Many streets in Notting Hill still bear the Ladbroke name today, including Ladbroke Grove and Ladbroke Square, and the former Ladbroke Estate is now a conservation area.
Ladbroke Square is a garden square in Notting Hill, west London, England.
Anthony Rubens Montalba was a Swedish-born, naturalised British painter and the head of a family of renowned artists that based itself in Venice in the later part of the nineteenth-century. He may be known best as the editor of an 1849 story collection illustrated by Richard Doyle, Fairy Tales from All Nations.
Ellen Emeline Montalba was a British artist. She was born in Bath, England, one of four daughters of the Swedish-born artist Anthony Rubens Montalba and Emeline. She and her three sisters all attained high repute as artists. The 1871 British census shows Anthony Montalba living at 19 Arundel Gardens, Notting Hill, in London, with four daughters, all artists.
Hilda Montalba was a British painter and sculptor.
Elgin Crescent is a street in Notting Hill, London, England.
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