A communal garden (often used in the plural as communal gardens) is a (normally formal) garden for shared use by a number of local residents, typically in an urban setting. The term is especially used in the United Kingdom. [1] The centre of many city squares and crescents (especially in London, for example) are maintained as communal gardens. [2]
Despite the name, and the fact that they typically look like small public parks, such gardens are normally privately or jointly owned, with sharing of maintenance costs. Access may be restricted by locked gates, with keys available for residents, or only unlocked during daytime. [3] They are often surrounded by tall railings designed to keep people out.
One of the scenes in the 1999 film Notting Hill involves the two main characters, Anna (Julia Roberts) and William (Hugh Grant), breaking into private and locked communal gardens by climbing over the wall at night after a dinner party. The communal gardens used were Rosmead Gardens in Rosmead Road, Notting Hill, London. [4]
Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around 2.9 miles (4.6 km) west of Central London.
Hampstead is an area in London, England, which lies four miles northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from the A5 road to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the London Borough of Camden, a borough in Inner London which for the purposes of the London Plan is designated as part of Central London.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is an Inner London borough with royal status. It is the smallest borough in London and the second smallest district in England; it is one of the most densely populated administrative regions in the United Kingdom. It includes affluent areas such as Notting Hill, Kensington, South Kensington, Chelsea, and Knightsbridge.
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 is a 1999 romantic comedy film directed by Roger Michell. The screenplay was written by Richard Curtis, and the film was produced by Duncan Kenworthy. It stars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, with Rhys Ifans, Emma Chambers, Tim McInnerny, Gina McKee, and Hugh Bonneville in supporting roles. The story is of a romance between a British bookseller (Grant) and a famous American actress (Roberts) who happens to walk into his shop in London's Notting Hill district.
The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual Caribbean Carnival event that has taken place in London since 1966 on the streets of the Notting Hill area of Kensington, over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
A dormitory is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university students. In some countries, it can also refer to a room containing several beds accommodating people.
A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence of someone whose main or largest residence was a country house.
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.
Park Square is a large garden square or private appendix to Regent's Park in London and is split from a further green, the long northern side of Park Crescent, by Marylebone Road and (single-entrance) Regent's Park tube station. It consists of two facing rows of large, very classically formed, stuccoed, terraced houses with decorative lower floor balconies and a colonnade of consecutive porticos by architect John Nash, and was built in 1823–24. Alike, shorter-length terraces flank its corners at right angles, equally Grade I listed buildings: Ulster Terrace, Ulster Place, St Andrew's Place and Albany Terrace.
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.
Arundel Gardens is a street and a communal garden square in Notting Hill, London, one of seven streets between Ladbroke Grove and Kensington Park Road of which five share in a communal garden between them. It was built in the 1860s, towards the later stages of the development of the Ladbroke Estate, until that decade part of the rural hinterland of London. Notable past residents of the street include psychologist Charles Samuel Myers, who coined the term shell shock, and the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Sir William Ramsay, discoverer of the noble gases.
The Electric Cinema is a cinema in Notting Hill, London.
A garden square is a type of communal garden in an urban area wholly or substantially surrounded by buildings; commonly, it continues to be applied to public and private parks formed after such a garden becomes accessible to the public at large. The archetypal garden square is surrounded by tall terraced houses and other types of townhouse. Because it is designed for the amenity of surrounding residents, it is subtly distinguished from a town square designed to be a public gathering place: due to its inherent private history, it may have a pattern of dedicated footpaths and tends to have considerably more plants than hard surfaces or large monuments.
Ladbroke Square is a garden square in Notting Hill, west London, England.
Powis Square is a garden square and locality in Notting Hill, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. The closest London Underground station to the square is Westbourne Park tube station.
Elgin Crescent is a street in Notting Hill, London, England.
Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) is a housing association formed in April 2018 by the merger of Notting Hill Housing and Genesis Housing Association. Notting Hill Genesis’ primary purpose is to work in the community to provide decent and affordable homes for lower-income households.