History
Etymology
Successive heads of the Thistlewaites, whose seat was Porchester manor in Hampshire, were foremost of three to four co-trustees of the Bishop of London's majority landholding of Paddington. This was throughout conversion from agricultural dominance to controlled urban housing: before 1750 until building began on this particular plot in 1850. Their manor was agreed as acceptable for three roads that survive and Porchester Square at the time.
Development
Eight building firms were used, resulting in slightly different exteriors of the large houses (now internally all converted into flats). Classical features are:
- porticoed steps to the front doors
- sash windows
- first floor juliet balconies with wrought iron railings
- multiple cornices
- roofline balustrades. [1]
The terrace of houses on the northern side of the square back onto the garden, without an intervening road, in the manner of at least three other nearby squares. [lower-alpha 1] As a consequence of this formation, these northern houses front a road with two names - Porchester Square on its southern side; Gloucester Terrace on its northern. [1]
The houses on the south side, keeping their façades and much of their internal structure, have been incorporated into an award-winning wider private development of flats and commercial premises since the mid-1970s, The Colonnades. This development was one of the first major projects of architects whose status later grew, Sir Terry Farrell and Sir Nicholas Grimshaw. [2]
The central gardens of the square which are open to the public. It has large, well-rooted, tall London Plane trees ( Platanus x hispanica ), flowering cherry trees, extensive lawns, colourful flower beds and a children's playground.
Begun in 1850 and completed between 1855 and 1858, the square was one of the last areas of Bayswater and Westbourne built. The dominant architect was George Wyatt, but the final word on both the general layout and the architectural detail was with George Gutch who in 1822 as surveyor of Bishop of London's then intrinsically Paddington lands reviewed and ratified all developments. At the outset of building the area was considered in the parish and soon the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington. In 1965 the authority became the City of Westminster which took the borough as its northern part, dissolving it. [1]
The architectural facades of the classical terrace, facing onto Porchester Square Garden, now incorporated into the Colonnades development, were carefully refurbished in 2020 by the freeholders.
Bayswater is an area within the City of Westminster in West London. It is a built-up district with a population density of 17,500 per square kilometre, and is located between Kensington Gardens to the south, Paddington to the north-east, and Notting Hill to the west.
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.
Paddington is an area in the City of Westminster, in central London, England. A medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Paddington station, designed by the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel opened in 1847. It is also the site of St Mary's Hospital and the former Paddington Green Police Station.
Paddington was a civil parish and metropolitan borough in London, England. It was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, governed by an administrative vestry. The parish was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855 and became part of the County of London in 1889. The parish of Paddington became a metropolitan borough in 1900, following the London Government Act 1899, with the parish vestry replaced by a borough council. In 1965 the borough was abolished and its former area became part of the City of Westminster in Greater London.
The Westbourne or Kilburn is a culverted small River Thames tributary in London, rising in Hampstead and Brondesbury Park and which as a drain unites and flows southward through Kilburn and Bayswater to skirt underneath the east of Hyde Park's Serpentine lake then through central Chelsea under Sloane Square. It passes centrally under the south side of Royal Hospital Chelsea's Ranelagh Gardens before discharging into Inner London's old-fashioned, but grandiose combined sewer system, with exceptional discharges into the Inner London Tideway. Since the latter 19th century, the population of its catchment has risen further but to reduce the toll it places on the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works and related bills its narrow basin has been assisted by private soakaways, and public surface water drains. Its depression has been replaced with and adopted as a reliable route for a gravity combined sewer. The formation of the Serpentine relied on the water, a lake with a long, ornate footbridge and various activities associated, which today uses little-polluted water from a great depth.
George Ledwell Taylor was an architect and landowner who lived in London.
Ossington Street is a quiet one-way street in London, W2, leading from Moscow Road at its north end to the Bayswater Road / Notting Hill Gate at its south end.
Lancaster Gate is a mid-19th century development in the Bayswater district of central London, immediately to the north of Kensington Gardens. It consists of two long terraces of houses overlooking the park, with a wide gap between them opening onto a square containing a church. Further terraces back onto the pair overlooking the park and loop around the square. Until 1865 the terraces were known as Upper Hyde Park Gardens, with the name Lancaster Gate limited to the square surrounding the church. The development takes its name from Lancaster Gate, a nearby entrance to Kensington Gardens, itself named in honour of Queen Victoria as Duke of Lancaster.
Westbourne is an area west of Paddington in west London. It has a manorial history spanning many centuries, within a more broadly defined Paddington, before shedding its association in the mid-19th century. It is named after the west bourne, West Bourne, or River Westbourne, a Thames tributary which was encased in 19th-century London in the 1850s. The spring-fed stream and associated manor have led to the place names Westbourne Green, Westbourne Park and more narrowly: Westbourne Gardens, Westbourne Grove, Westbourne Park Road, Westbourne Park tube station, Westbourne Studios and the name of a public house.
Leinster Gardens is a street in Bayswater, London. It is lined with tall, ornate, mid-Victorian terraced houses, many of which are listed buildings.
Craven Hill Gardens is a classical, Victorian, residential garden estate which has two small garden squares, the green subset of squares in London. It is in Bayswater, in its Lancaster Gate neighbourhood, south-west of contemporary Paddington of which those districts were once part. It is made up of four rows of residential buildings lining its three streets, and eastern returns, between 160 and 250 metres north of Hyde Park. The western return of this street configuration is partly Leinster Gardens and partly named Leinster Terrace.
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.
Leinster Square and Prince's Square are mirroring garden squares in Bayswater on the cusp of Westbourne and Notting Hill. One street overlaps the two squares. It is within the large additions of 1965 to the City of Westminster, London, W2.
Little Venice is a district in West London, England, around the junction of the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, the Regent's Canal, and the entrance to Paddington Basin. The junction forms a triangular shape basin. Many of the buildings in the vicinity are Regency white painted stucco terraced town houses and taller blocks (mansions) in the same style. The area is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) west-north-west of Charing Cross and immediately north-west of Paddington.
Homewood is an Arts and Crafts style country house in Knebworth, Hertfordshire, England. Designed and built by architect Edwin Lutyens around 1900–3, using a mixture of vernacular and Neo-Georgian architecture, it is a Grade II* listed building. The house was one of Lutyens' first experiments in the addition of classical features to his previously vernacular style, and the introduction of symmetry into his plans. The gardens, also designed by Lutyens, are Grade II listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Hyde Park Square is a residential, tree-planted, garden square one block north of Hyde Park fronted by classical buildings, many of which are listed and marks a crossover of Lancaster Gate and Connaught Village neighbourhoods of Bayswater, London. It measures (internally) 200 by 500 feet, of which the bulk is the private communal garden – the rest is street-lit, pavemented streets with low railings in front of the houses.
Westbourne Terrace is a street in the Paddington district of the City of Westminster in west London. The street runs between Westbourne Bridge in the north and the junction of Westbourne Crescent and Sussex Gardens in the south and was developed between 1839 and the late 1850s. It has been described as the "most spacious and dignified avenue" in Bayswater and "unrivalled in its class in London or even Great Britain". The street is not to be confused with Westbourne Terrace Road which runs north from Westbourne Bridge into Little Venice, and a large number of other Westbourne streets in the area.
Cleveland Square is a private and gated garden square in the predominantly classically conserved Bayswater district of the City of Westminster, north of Central London's Hyde Park. The housing is in tall, tree-shaded rows, stuccoed and with pillared porches, with some discreet infilling of other housing behind.
William Kingdom was a property developer who was active in the development of tracts of west London in the mid-nineteenth century. These included the Westbourne area where he worked with Thomas Marsh Nelson on Westbourne Terrace, areas north of Craven Road, and most of Gloucester Terrace between 1843 and 1852. He may also have developed Hyde Park Gardens, Paddington.
Gloucester Terrace is a street in Central London in the vicinity of Paddington and Bayswater. Located in the City of Westminster, it runs northwards from Lancaster Terrace near to Lancaster Gate tube station and Hyde Park before curving round to meet Porchester Square around Westbourne. The southern section is close to the border between Tyburnia and Bayswater. It intersects with Craven Road, Chilworth Street, Cleveland Terrace, Bishop's Bridge Road and Orsett Terrace. Its northern section is close to the Great Western Main Line and Westway. Westbourne Terrace runs directly parallel to the east.
