Portobello Road is a street in the Notting Hill district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London. It runs almost the length of Notting Hill from South to North, roughly parallel with Ladbroke Grove. On Saturdays it is home to Portobello Road Market, one of London's notable street markets, known for its second-hand clothes, pastries and antiques.[1] Every August since 1996, the Portobello Film Festival has been held in locations around Portobello Road and, in 2015, Portobello Radio was founded as the area's community radio station.[2]
Portobello Road was known prior to 1740 as Green's Lane – a winding country path leading from Kensington Gravel Pits, in what is now Notting Hill Gate,[3] up to Kensal Green in the north. It descends from 84 feet (25.6m) above sea level at the northern end, the highest point, to a lowest point of 65 feet (19.8m) after which the road rises and falls before reaching a high point of 78 feet (23.8m) at the southern end. The average grade of ascent or descent between the northern end and the lowest point is about 1.77 percent.
18th century
In 1740, Portobello Farm was built in the area near what is now Golborne Road. The farm got its name from the 1739 Battle of Porto Bello during the lost War of Jenkins' Ear, when Admiral Edward Vernon captured the Spanish-ruled town of Puerto Bello (now known as Portobelo in modern-day Panama).[4] Vernon Yard, which runs off Portobello Road, still honours the Admiral's name to this day.[5] The Portobello farming area covered the land which is now St Charles' Hospital.[6]
Urbanisation
1841 map of the Environs of London, showing the Portobello Farm on the upper left-hand side, and Porto Bello Lane.
Portobello Road became an urban highway in the Victorian era. Before about 1850, it was little more than a country lane connecting Portobello Farm with Kensal Green in the north and what is today Notting Hill in the south. Much of it consisted of hayfields, orchards and other open land. The road ultimately took form piecemeal in the second half of the 19th century, nestling between the large new residential developments of Paddington and Notting Hill. Its shops and markets thrived on serving the wealthy inhabitants of the elegant crescents and terraces that sprang up around it, and its working-class residents found employment in the immediate vicinity as construction workers, domestic servants, coachmen, messengers, tradesmen and costermongers. After the Hammersmith and City Railway line was completed in 1864, and Ladbroke Grove station opened, the northern end of Portobello Road was also developed, and the last of the open fields disappeared under brick and concrete.
Portobello Farm was sold to an order of nuns after the railways came in 1864. They built St Joseph's Convent for the Dominican Order - or the "Black Friars" as they were known in England.[7]
A range of communities inhabit Portobello. Its architecture is characterised by meandering roads and curving streets, in contrast to the more formally planned layout of most of the nearby area. Mid- to late-Victorian terrace houses and shops predominate, squeezed tightly into the available space. The Friends of Portobello campaign seeks to preserve the street's unique dynamic, and campaigns against branded chain stores. Portobello Road is also home to the Grade II* Electric Cinema, one of Britain's oldest cinemas.
Portobello Road Market
Portobello Road Market
A view north along Portobello Road from the junction with Lonsdale Road
Portobello Road Market draws thousands of tourists each year. The main market day for antiques is Saturday, the only day when all five sections are opened: second-hand goods, clothing and fashion, household essentials, fruit, vegetables and other food, and antiques. However, there are also clothing, antique, bric-a-brac, fruit and vegetable stalls throughout the week and are located further north than the antiques, near the Westway Flyover. Shops and cafes are opened daily.
The market began as many other London markets and mainly sold fresh-food in the 19th century; antiques and wares dealers arrived in the late 1940s and '50s, and gradually antiques have become the main attraction of this market, having a substantial number of them trading mainly on Saturday mornings. It is the largest antiques market in the UK.[citation needed]
The market section of Portobello Road runs in a direction generally between the north-northwest and the south-south-east. The northern terminus is at Golborne Road; the southern end is at Westbourne Grove, to the east. The market area is about 1,028 yards (940 m) long.
About one third of the way from its north end, the market runs beneath adjacent bridges of the A40 road and the Hammersmith & City line of the London Underground. Here the market focuses on second hand clothes as well as couture.
In media
Films
The market was the setting for the 1999 film Notting Hill, with much of the filming taking place on the street. The famed blue door, however, no longer exists, having been sold.[10]
The 1950 Ealing Studios police thriller The Blue Lamp, starring Dirk Bogarde and Jack Warner, as P.C. George Dixon, a character later revived in the long-running TV drama, Dixon of Dock Green, featured location filming in the Paddington/Notting Hill/Portobello area. It features good shots of these locations in pre-Westway days, and it includes a thrilling car chase along largely traffic-free roads, including Portobello Road.
In 2006, the 20-minute documentary Portobello: Attack of the Clones won London awards and was screened a number of times at the infamous Electric Cinema. The film showed how Portobello Road is threatened by high-street stores changing the street's independent spirit. It featured a large number of local stallholders and influencers, and it was made by local filmmakers Paul McCrudden and Alex Thomas for TAG Films.
Alice's Antiques shop at the southern end of Portobello Road is also famous as being the location of Gruber's Antiques in the Paddington Bear movies.
Theatre
The 1959 British musical Make Me an Offer, with book by Wolf Mankowitz based on his novel of the same title, and music and lyrics by David Heneker and Monty Norman, takes place on Portobello Road, and includes the song "Portobello Road", sung by the ensemble. Another song, "I Want a Lock-up", also refers to Portobello Road.[12] The musical is available for licensing through Samuel French, Inc.[13]
In the short story "The Portobello Road", Muriel Spark narrates the story of a murderer who, visited by the ghost of his victim, Macbeth-style, tends to constantly go to the Portobello Road market to meet her. "The Portobello Road" was included in the 1958 collection The Go-away Bird and Other Stories.[14]
The cult British children's book character Paddington Bear, featured in the books written by Michael Bond, enjoys visiting Portobello Market on a daily basis. His friend Mr. Gruber, with whom Paddington has his elevenses every day, owns an antique shop on the Portobello Road.
In Cathy Hopkins' Mates, Dates and Portobello Princess, the fourth book of her young adult Mates, Dates series, Nesta Williams who is from a middle-class North London family struggles to fit in as she starts dating rich Simon Peddington-Lee.
In the 1970 novel The Chinese Agent by Michael Moorcock, a world-renowned jewel-thief more than meets his match when he attempts to swipe a brooch from a Portobello Road market stall, and is hunted down through the streets like a dog by the sharp-eyed market traders.
Portobello Road is also mentioned in Indian Urdu writer Shamsur Rahman Faruqi's 2006 novel The Mirror of Beauty.
In the short story "Different Skies" by China Miéville, the protagonist buys an eerie coloured window pane in Portobello Road Market. This story is included in the 2005 collection Looking for Jake.[15]
Music
In 1979, the rock band Dire Straits sang about the road in the song "Portobello Belle" on their second album Communiqué.
In the narrative introduction to their song Have Some Madeira M'Dear, Michael Flanders of Flanders & Swann mentions a decanter he owns – "cut glass, from the Portobello Road" – in which he keeps Madeira. That decanter plus his Edwardian hat, are credited as the inspirations for the song (album: At the Drop of a Hat).
Donovan's song "Sunny South Kensington" containing the lyrics: "...in the Portobella I met a fella with a cane umbrella."
The B-side of British Singer-SongwriterCat Stevens' 1966 single "I Love My Dog" is titled "Portobello Road" and discusses a walk through the famous street and market. The track also appears on Cat Stevens' 1967 debut album Matthew and Son.
In Caetano Veloso's "Nine Out Of Ten" song from the 1972 album Transa, he sings "walk down Portobello Road to the sound of reggae". The Brazilian artist lived in London in the late 1960s and early 1970s during his exile.
TV
Steptoe and Son, a UK TV sitcom about Rag and Bone men, frequently refers to the road.
↑ "Festival Reports". Portobello Road Film Festival. 2005. Retrieved 21 January 2008.
↑ Sheppard, F. H. W. (1973). "The village centres around St. Mary Abbot's Church and Notting Hill Gate". Survey of London. volume 37. pp.25–41. Retrieved 21 January 2008.
↑ Public Control Committee (1893). "Appendix B". London Markets, Special Report of the Public Control Committee Relative to Existing Markets and Market Rights and as to the Expediency of Establishing New Markets in or Near the Administrative County of London (Report). London: London County Council. p.35.
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 the 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.
Shepherd's Bush is a suburb of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham 4.9 miles (7.9 km) west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan.
The Westway is a 2.5-mile (4 km) elevated dual carriageway section of the A40 trunk road in West London running from Paddington in the east to North Kensington in the west. It connects the London Inner Ring Road to the West London suburbs.
The Metropolitan Borough of Kensington was a metropolitan borough in the County of London from 1900 to 1965, which since 1901 was known as the Royal Borough of Kensington, following the death of Queen Victoria, in accordance with her wishes.
Trellick Tower is a Grade II* listed tower block on the Cheltenham Estate in North Kensington, London. Opened in 1972, it was commissioned by the Greater London Council and designed in the Brutalist style by architect Ernő Goldfinger. The tower was planned to replace outdated social accommodation, and designed as an improvement on Goldfinger's earlier Balfron Tower in East London. It was the last major project he worked on, and featured various space-saving designs, along with a separate access tower containing a plant room.
Ladbroke Grove is an area and a road in North Kensington 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.
Westbourne Grove is a retail road running across Notting Hill, an area of west London. Its western end is in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and its eastern end is in the City of Westminster; it runs from Kensington Park Road in the west to Queensway in the east, crossing over Portobello Road. It contains a mixture of independent and chain retailers, and has been termed both "fashionable" and "up-and-coming".
Notting Hill Gate is one of the main thoroughfares in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically the street was a location for toll gates, from which it derives its modern name.
Ladbroke Grove is a London Underground station on the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines, between Latimer Road and Westbourne Park stations, and in Travelcard Zone 2 set in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Regent's Park and Kensington North was a constituency in Central and West London represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election from 1997 to 2010.
Frestonia was the name adopted for a couple of months by the squatters of Freston Road, London, when they attempted to stop a threatened eviction via secession from the United Kingdom. In 1974, two streets of tumbledown terraced Victorian cottages – Freston Road and Bramley Road – were broken into by squatters who rigged up electricity, water and makeshift roofs. They playfully formed the Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia.
North Kensington is an area of west London. It is north of Notting Hill and south of Kensal Green and in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The names North Kensington and Ladbroke Grove describe the same area.
Harrow Road is an ancient route in North West London which runs from Paddington in a northwesterly direction towards Harrow. It is also the name given to the immediate surrounding area of Queens Park and Kensal Green, straddling the NW10, W10, W2 and W9 postcodes. With minor deviations in the 19th and 20th centuries, the route remains otherwise unaltered.
The A40 is a major trunk road connecting London to Fishguard, Wales. The A40 in London starts in the City of London and passes through six London Boroughs: Camden, Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing and Hillingdon, to meet the M40 motorway junction 1 at Denham, Buckinghamshire.
Portobello is a novel by British writer Ruth Rendell, published in 2008. It is set in and around the Portobello Road in Notting Hill, London. Written in the third-person narrative mode, it follows the lives of a number of Londoners—rich and poor alike—living near the Portobello Road Market whose paths cross by accident rather than design. In other words, Portobello is about "the destinies of an oddly assorted group of people, whose only common characteristic is their postcode."
Golborne Road is a street in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London's Kensal Town. The road runs east from Portobello Road to Kensal Road.
Notting Dale is a mainly residential enclave in the West London district of Notting Hill. It has variously been associated with Irish, Catholic and Gypsy populations.
Blenheim Crescent is a street in the Ladbroke Estate area of the Notting Hill district of west London.
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