Bayswater
Bayswater has come to be the name for the whole
of the former Paddington metropolitan borough
south of the railway. (fn. 31) The area described below,
however, is the south-western part of Paddington,
from the Kensington boundary eastward to Lancaster Gate Terrace and Eastbourne Terrace and from
Bayswater Road northward to Bishop's Bridge Road
and Westbourne Grove. It includes the two Lancaster Gate wards of 1901, besides a small part of
Church ward along Eastbourne Terrace. (fn. 32) The districts to the east and north are treated separately,
under Tyburnia and Westbourne green.
Bayard's Watering Place, recorded in 1380, (fn. 33) was
where the stream later called the Bayswater rivulet or
Westbourne passed under the Uxbridge road. The
name presumably denoted a place where horses were
refreshed, either from the stream itself or from a
spring such as the one in Conduit field which from
1439 supplied the City with water. (fn. 34) There were
several variations of the name, (fn. 35) Bayswatering being
common in the 18th century, (fn. 36) although the form
Bayswater occurred as early as 1659. (fn. 37)
Seventeenth-century Bayswater was a small hamlet, whose inhabitants were presumably assessed
with those of Westbourne green. (fn. 38) Robert Hilliard
had a dwelling house at Bayard's Watering by 1646,
together with 6 a. in the common fields of Westbourne. (fn. 39) In 1710 Robert Pollard held two houses
called Bayard's Watering Place, with outbuildings
and 6 a. in Westbourne common fields, once occupied by Alexander Bond; he also held the new brick
house called the Bell, formerly the King's Head and
once occupied by Edward Hilliard, with its stable
which had been converted into a little house near the
road. (fn. 40) Nearby in 1730 there was at least one other
inn, the Saracen's Head, perhaps at other times
called the Swan. (fn. 41) To the west were the buildings of
Upton farm, well back from the highway at the end
of a tree-lined lane, which were bought in 1733 by
Lord Craven. (fn. 42) In 1746 there were only two buildings near the road east of the Bayswater rivulet and
three on the west side. The lane still led through
fields, to Lord Craven's pest house, east of which
were two more buildings, presumably barns, beside
the rivulet. (fn. 43) The location in 1742 was 'intended to
be called Craven Hill'. (fn. 44)
To the west the Oxford Arms stood alone by 1729
at the east corner of the lane leading from the
Uxbridge road to Westbourne green. A gravel pit
bordered the lane north of the inn, (fn. 45) which was
called the Black Lion by 1751 and was then considered to be at Bayswater, as was the Crown farther
east. (fn. 46)
Still farther west, a large settlement on both sides
of the Uxbridge road was known from the 17th until
the 19th century as Kensington Gravel Pits. It may
have preceded the discovery of gravel and lay mostly
in Kensington, along the stretch of road which came
to be known as Netting Hill Gate. (fn. 47) Part lay in Paddington, however, including a new brick house held
by Peter Warren, a London carpenter, in 1709. (fn. 48)
Some half a dozen buildings in Paddington stood
close to the boundary in 1746, by the Uxbridge road
and at the entrance to a lane which cut north-eastward to meet Westbourne Green (later Black Lion)
Lane. Between Westbourne Green Lane and Kensington Gravel Pits, Shaftesbury House stood alone
by the main road. (fn. 49)
Bayswater was one of four new rating divisions of
the parish in 1773, when, however, most of its 56
properties were probably at Westbourne green. (fn. 50)
Speculative building along the Uxbridge road was
started by John Elkins, a bricklayer or brickmaker of
South Street, St. George's, Hanover Square, to
whom Benjamin Crompton in 1776 granted 91-year
leases of 5 a. and of the adjoining Black Lion. (fn. 51)
Elkins, who also acquired land near Paddington
green, (fn. 52) from 1779 subleased several parcels of Black
Lion field with road frontages of 18 ft., for 'double
brick' houses which came to be known as Elkins's
Row. (fn. 53) It was only a short row in 1790, when a Bayswater coffee house also existed. There were apparently no other new buildings between Bayard's
Watering Place and Kensington Gravel Pits. (fn. 54) Undeveloped plots were conveyed by Elkins's executors
to William Philpot in 1792. (fn. 55) Bayswater was only a
'small hamlet' in 1807, when it was noted for its tea
gardens and water supply, and for the lying-in hospital (soon known as Queen Charlotte's) farther
east. (fn. 56)
Widespread speculative building was carried out
by Edward Orme, a print seller of Bond Street, who
in 1809 acquired the former Bell at Bayswater, called
Elms House, with two houses behind it, formerly a
single house, (fn. 57) and also Bayswater tea gardens. (fn. 58)
Meanwhile dwellings had replaced the pest house at
Craven Hill, where Orme bought the lease of a house
in 1811. (fn. 59) Soon he also held much property farther
west along the Uxbridge road, where he may first
have made money from gravel. (fn. 60) He paid for Bayswater chapel in 1818, to serve houses which he had
presumably erected in Petersburgh (later St. Petersburgh) Place, leading north from the Uxbridge road
to a 'street or place called Moscow Cottages', itself
linked to Black Lion Lane by a road soon called
Moscow Road. (fn. 61) The two new roads were said to
commemorate Orme's business dealings with
Russia (fn. 62) but may have been named merely in honour
of Tsar Alexander I's visit to England in 1814. Orme
Square, whose south side was formed by the Uxbridge road, was built between 1823, when land was
bought east of Petersburgh Place, and 1826. (fn. 63)
Edward Orme (d. 1848) granted leases of two new
houses in Moscow Road in 1826 and himself lived
from c. 1829 in Fitzroy Square. (fn. 64) He was probably
responsible for building at Orme's green in Harrow
Road (fn. 65) and, with Francis Orme, had filled in some
spaces in Moscow Road in 1839. (fn. 66) Edward in 1842
owned all the houses in Porchester Gardens and St.
Petersburgh Place. (fn. 67) Many leases, both of older
houses and of new ones, as in Lancaster Terrace,
Lancaster Gate, and St. Leonard's Terrace, Blomfield Road, were later sold by Francis Orme. (fn. 68)
Another builder in the south-western corner of the
parish was John Bark, described at first as a coal
merchant, who in 1818 lived in Marylebone and by
1821 in Bayswater Hill, where new houses faced the
Uxbridge road west of Shaftesbury House. In 1818
Bark took a 98-year building lease of the Paddington
Estate's Six-Acre field, 'lately in part dug out for
making bricks', stretching from the Uxbridge road
to Moscow Road, where in 1821 he was granted
leases on small houses in Caroline Place and Poplar
Place. (fn. 69) Farther east, beyond Elkins's Row, which
was also known as Bayswater Terrace, (fn. 70) Porchester
Terrace had been planned to run northward to
Westbourne green by 1823. Single or semi-detached
villas in the new road were leased to individuals by
the Paddington Estate from 1823, one of the first
being to the landscape gardener John Claudius
Loudon (1783-1843). (fn. 71) Building along the Uxbridge
road continued with four pairs called St. Agnes
Villas, first leased in 1824; nos. 1 to 4 were west of
the corner with Porchester Terrace, next to Elkins's
Row, and nos. 5 to 8 on the east corner. (fn. 72)
By 1828 the main road, facing Kensington Gardens, had been built up between Petersburgh Place
and Porchester Terrace. Houses stretched north to
Moscow Road, itself nearly completed, although
there was open ground near the boundary and
between Petersburgh Place and Bark Place. Along
the west side of Black Lion Lane there were houses
as far as the corner of Moscow Road and more
spacious villas, at first called Westbourne Terrace,
farther north almost reaching Pickering Place at the
southern end of Westbourne green. The east side
was still open, apart from a few large houses at the
Uxbridge road end, and villas lined Porchester Terrace only as far as the corner of Craven Hill, which
itself had cottages only on the north side. Fields survived along the Uxbridge road from St. Agnes Villas
to Bayard's Watering Place, whence Elms or Elm
Lane led northward, with some houses between it
and the stream, along the line of the later Craven
Terrace to the east end of Craven Hill. (fn. 73)
Building in the south-west part of the parish thus
almost kept pace with the growth of Tyburnia. Although housing spread inwards from the two southern corners of the parish, eventually to meet at
Bayard's Watering Place halfway along the Uxbridge
road, the movements at first were unrelated. Only
part of south-western Paddington belonged to the
bishop of London, comprising in 1828 a block
stretching from the Uxbridge road east of Bark
Place, a larger block along Porchester Terrace to
Hall field, and a stretch on the east side of Black Lion
Lane. No overall plan was therefore drawn up. The
larger houses were not stately terraces overlooking
squares and served by mews alleys, as in Tyburnia,
but villas with gardens. (fn. 74) The name Bayswater was
not at first applied to the south-western corner:
Black Lion Lane was described in 1803 as linking
Westbourne green with Kensington Gravel Pits, (fn. 75)
and Orme Square was 'a northward feeler of the
Kensington Palace purlieus'. (fn. 76) By 1830, however,
the area around Black Lion Lane was known as
Bayswater. (fn. 77)
During the 1830s Victoria Grove (renamed Ossington Street in 1873) (fn. 78) was laid out from the
Uxbridge road close to the boundary, on part of
Gravel Pit field. A large house at the Moscow Road
end was leased in 1831 to the architect Thomas
Allason, (fn. 79) surveyor to the neighbouring Ladbroke
estate; it was probably the villa, in 2½ a., on which
Allason had worked since 1825 and which J. C.
Loudon considered unequalled in the suburbs of
London. (fn. 80) Seven terraced houses to the south were
leased to William Ward, a Marylebone builder, in
1836 and six others in 1841. (fn. 81) Ward also filled a space
along the Uxbridge road between Victoria Grove
and the boundary with an inn and five shops, nos. 1
to 6 Wellington Terrace. (fn. 82) More villas were built
along Porchester Terrace, as far as Hall field, but in
1840 Bayswater had still not been joined to neighbouring districts. There was open land south of
Craven Hill, (fn. 83) including the parish's Bread and
Cheese lands and land which Joseph Neeld held
from the chapter of Westminster, partly in Westbourne common field and partly bordering the
Uxbridge road. (fn. 84)
Artistic and literary figures were attracted to a
district which was still semi-rural. (fn. 85) In 1834 the poet
Sarah Flower Adams (1805-48) moved with her husband to no. 5 Craven Hill, where they were soon
followed by the author and politician William Johnson Fox (1786-1864) and his housekeeper the composer Eliza Flower (1803-46), Sarah's sister. There,
in her 'snug, out-of-the-world corner', Eliza entertained Thomas Carlyle and others in a literary circle
familiar to the young Robert Browning. (fn. 86) The composer Vincent Novello (1781-1861) lived at no. 4,
where from 1835 until 1856 the household included
his son-in-law and daughter, Charles (1787-1877)
and Mary Cowden Clarke (1809-98), the authors.
At the Loudons' house in Porchester Terrace, Mary
Cowden Clarke met the painters Charles (1799-
1879) and Edward Landseer (1802-73), and John
Martin (1789-1854), and the sculptor Joseph
Bonomi (1796-1878). At the corner of Black Lion
Lane, Ivy Cottage was the home of the engraver
Samuel Reynolds (1773-1835) and later of Augustus
Egg (1816-63); Egg's guests included the fellow
painter William Mulready (1786-1863), (fn. 87) who
claimed to have been a lifelong Bayswater resident,
and Charles Dickens. Farther west Sir Rowland Hill
(1795-1879), inventor of the penny post, lived at no.
1 Orme Square from 1839 until 1842 (fn. 88) and the artist
Frederic (later Lord) Leighton at no. 2 from 1860 to
1866. St. Petersburgh House, no. 8 Bayswater Hill,
was the home of the conveyancer Lewis Duval
(1774-1844) and then of his niece's husband the
Vice-Chancellor Sir Charles Hall (1814-83).
By 1840 plans had been made to exploit more of
the Paddington Estate as the eastern part of Bayswater, where the future Gloucester, Westbourne,
and Eastbourne terraces were to lead to Bishop's
Road. (fn. 89) The layout was presumably by George
Gutch, whose long avenues contrasted with the interrelated squares and short streets of Cockerell's
Tyburnia. Terraces were chosen, rather than villas,
perhaps in order to mask the railway. (fn. 90) They were
also used, however, in most of the rest of Bayswater:
in further building along the former Black Lion
Lane, renamed Queen's Road, in most of Inverness
and Queensborough terraces, parallel avenues driven
north between Queen's Road and Porchester Terrace, in Lancaster Gate, which filled the last gap
along the Uxbridge road, around Cleveland Square
north of Craven Hill, and around Prince's, Leinster,
and Kensington Gardens squares north of Moscow
Road. Detached villas were chosen only for the completion of Porchester Terrace as far as Bishop's Road
and semi-detached ones only for the northern end
of Inverness Terrace and, farther west, around
Monmouth Road south of Westbourne Grove. (fn. 91)
During the 1840s and 1850s housing spread
steadily. It was the work of several builders, many of
them also active in Tyburnia, in the south part of
Maida Vale, and in the east part of Westbourne
green, where some of Bayswater's long avenues were
continued north of Bishop's Road. The grandest
street was Westbourne Terrace, begun from the
south end c. 1840 and finished 1856-60, whose main
builders were William King and William Kingdom.
The blocks north of Craven Road were by Kingdom, (fn. 92) who also built most of Gloucester Terrace
between 1843 and 1852. (fn. 93) Meanwhile farther west
lines of building similarly proceeded northward along
Queen's Road, Porchester Terrace, the newer Inverness and Queensborough terraces, and the cross
street Porchester Gardens. Builders who took several
plots in Queen's Road included Edward Capps,
whose sublessees included James Capps, from 1841
and Richard Yeo of Westbourne Park Road from
1851. (fn. 94) They also had land in Inverness Terrace,
whose stretch north of Porchester Gardens was
called Inverness Road until 1876 and which was
built up between 1844 and 1856, largely by Yeo. (fn. 95)
John Scantlebury was building at the south end of
Inverness Terrace in 1857. (fn. 96)
Between the two groups of long north-south
avenues lay an area, on either side of Craven Hill,
which was built over from the 1850s with grand
town houses, many enjoying communal gardens as
in the newer parts of Tyburnia. The most lavish use
of space was in Cleveland Square, where the block
forming the north side gave directly on the gardens. (fn. 97)
Houses on the other sides were leased between 1852
and 1854 to Henry de Bruno Austin, a speculator
active in Paddington and later in outer suburbs. (fn. 98)
Grounds were also attached to the nearby terraces of
Queen's Gardens and Craven Hill Gardens. (fn. 99) In
1853 Joseph Neeld and the chapter of Westminster
leased their land south of Craven Hill, (fn. 1) which soon
formed part of the site of an ambitious scheme around
the new Christ Church, itself begun in 1854. (fn. 2) Terraces were built on the scale of Hyde Park Gardens
and were similarly, although less generously, set back
from the main road. (fn. 3) They were known as Upper
Hyde Park Gardens until 1865 and thereafter as
Lancaster Gate, a name previously reserved for the
square around the church. (fn. 4) The terraced houses were
said to be the most handsome in London in 1868. (fn. 5)
Farther west, Carlyle could still remark c. 1855
that only a thin belt of houses to the north and west
separated Orme Square from open country. (fn. 6) The
earliest quarter of Bayswater, however, was soon
hemmed in by building to the north. Hereford, Monmouth, and Garway roads were pushed a short way
south from Westbourne Grove for William Kinnaird
Jenkins. (fn. 7) Leinster and Prince's squares were begun
in 1856, with Kensington Gardens Square to the east
and mews alleys to the south behind Moscow Road.
Both Leinster and Prince's squares had private gardens and were largely the work of an obscure speculator, George Wyatt. Leinster Square had a few
residents in 1858 and was the first to be finished, by
1864. (fn. 8)
Building covered the whole of Bayswater by 1865,
when the only sites for infilling were south of Moscow Road, chiefly along the east side of Victoria
Grove. (fn. 9) In 1862 a 'great and aristocratic town' had
grown up, faster than all other suburbs, during the
past ten years. Although the description embraced
far flung Westbournia, the most desirable part
stretched south from Bishop's Road and Westbourne
Grove to the Uxbridge road, henceforth called Bayswater Road. Houses were said to be better built and
sited than before and, being near Kensington Gardens, to have a decided edge over 'the solemn and
obnubilated grandeur of the ill drained Belgravian
flats'. (fn. 10)
Wealthy residents, who were quick to arrive, in
1862 ranged from East India merchants to people
who had moved from formerly more fashionable
quarters. (fn. 11) In Westbourne Terrace the first occupants included the statesman Richard Cobden
(1804-65), at no. 103 from 1848 to 1856, and Sir
Richard Bethell (1800-73), later Lord Chancellor as
Lord Westbury, at no. 70; other occupants included
Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake Walker, Bt. (1802-76),
Sir Charles Trevelyan (1807-86), governor of
Madras, and Charles Manby (1804-84), the civil
engineer. (fn. 12) Upper Hyde Park Gardens or Lancaster
Gate housed Lord Westbury, Lord Rollo, and two
M.P.s in 1863. (fn. 13) Socially Tyburnia had spread westward, providing a 'carriage trade' which William
Whiteley was to exploit. (fn. 14)
During the late 19th century Bayswater's social
character grew more mixed. (fn. 15) In the south-west
corner a few shops had been among the first buildings in the Uxbridge road (fn. 16) and in the 1840s shops
lined both Queen's Road as far as the Moscow Road
junction and Moscow Road itself. (fn. 17) Queen's Road
had grown even more commercial by 1863. Shops
replaced Ivy Cottage (fn. 18) and there were very few private residents by 1879, when Whiteley's, expanding
southward from Westbourne Grove, had already
acquired premises next to the municipal baths. (fn. 19)
From the first there were tradesmen in Craven Terrace and in Conduit Street, which was renamed
Craven Road in 1868, when many of its shops had
been newly rebuilt. (fn. 20) Hotels, boarding or lodging
houses, and apartments also multiplied, notably in
Queen's Road and Kensington Gardens Square, perhaps partly due to the influence of Whiteley, who
acquired staff dormitories in Queen's Road and dining rooms in the square. The most striking increase
was in Eastbourne Terrace, the edge of the district,
where railway travellers were responsible for the
street's conversion into a row of apartments and
hotels by 1902. The population, which by 1870 included many rich foreign born citizens, grew more
cosmopolitan, with the consecration of a synagogue
in St. Petersburgh Place in 1879 and of a Greek
Orthodox cathedral in Moscow Road in 1882. (fn. 21)
Such changes tended to be limited to particular
streets, leaving a preponderantly residential and
prosperous suburb. At no. 23 Porchester Gardens
the 'first instance of effective electric lighting of a
private house' was provided in 1879 by the engineer
Rookes Crompton (1845-1940), who lived there. (fn. 22)
A few large houses were used by institutions, leading
professional men, or tutors in polite accomplishments. (fn. 23) The Jewish householders were richer than
those of Maida Vale; (fn. 24) they included the banker
Samuel Montagu, later Lord Swaythling (1832-
1911), in Cleveland Square and from 1873 at the
opulently decorated no. 96 Lancaster Gate. (fn. 25) In
1879 there were seven M.P.s in Lancaster Gate, (fn. 26)
which had Paddington's 'largest and showiest cluster' of residences. (fn. 27) Householders in 1902 included
the marquess of Ailsa, the philanthropist Reginald
Brabazon, earl of Meath (1841-1929), to whom a
memorial was later erected, and the engineer Lieut.Gen. Sir Richard Strachey (1817-1908). (fn. 28) Sir Richard's son Lytton Strachey was brought up from 1884
at no. 69 and always remembered it as a house of
high, crammed rooms, 'afflicted with elephantiasis'. (fn. 29)
Nearly all the area from Westbourne Terrace to
Inverness Terrace was wealthy c. 1890, although
Leinster Place and Terrace and Craven Terrace were
merely well-to-do, as were Eastbourne Terrace to
the east and Queen's Road to the west. Prince's,
Leinster, and Kensington Gardens squares were also
wealthy. The only mixed areas were mews alleys, as
in Tyburnia, and around Moscow Road. (fn. 30) In the
smartest parts, the less affluent were mainly caretakers, policemen, and shopkeepers. Older property
near Moscow Road was let for high rents to shopkeepers, artisans, and clerks, most of whom were
'pretty comfortable'. (fn. 31) Lancaster Gate East and West
wards, created in 1901, had only 2.15 per cent and
2.58 of their inhabitants overcrowded, compared
with 32.76 per cent in Church ward around Paddington green, and death rates were low at 7.67 and 9.08
per cent. (fn. 32)
Building activity in the late 19th century was
limited mainly to the piecemeal replacement of
houses whose leases had fallen in. The oldest houses
were west of Lancaster Gate, along Bayswater Road
and around Moscow Road. Part of Bayswater Hill
was taken for the Red House of 1871, designed by
J. J. Stevenson as a precursor of the 'Queen Anne'
style, soon to be popular in Ealing's Bedford Park.
The only new road was west of Orme Square, where
Shaftesbury House disappeared and Palace Court
was driven north to Moscow Road. (fn. 33) Some houses
were built there in 1889 and flats called Palace Court
Mansions were inhabited from 1890. (fn. 34) Many Palace
Court residents had aesthetic tastes similar to those
in Bedford Park; they included Wilfrid Meynell and
his wife Alice, the poet (1847-1922), the artist
George William Joy (d. 1925), and the furniture
expert Percy McQuoid (d. 1925). (fn. 35) Nearby nos. 4
and 5 Bayswater Hill, which had been built on
Bark's land and stood next to the Red House, were
to make way for two or three expensive houses in
1894. (fn. 36) Houses at the Kensington end of Moscow
Road had been replaced by flats called Prince
Edward Mansions and Palace Court by 1890. A little
to the east the flats of Pembridge Mansions were
occupied from 1897 and those of Windsor and Moscow courts, filling a gap, from 1907. (fn. 37) The site of
nos. 6 to 8 Bayswater Hill was advertised as suitable
for high-class flats or a hotel in 1912. (fn. 38)
Elsewhere in Bayswater Road flats were built east
of Queen's Road along Bayswater Terrace and east
of Queensborough Terrace. (fn. 39) At the west corner of
Queen's Road a range including shops and the
Coburg hotel was put up, to include the new Queen's
Road Underground station, in use from 1901.
Changes had already taken place in Queen's Road
with the provision of more modern shops, the building of Paddington's first public baths in 1874, and
the opening of the forerunner of Bayswater Underground station in 1868. (fn. 40) Beaumanor Mansions, an
imposing range of flats over shops north of the
corner of Moscow Road, was occupied from 1904. (fn. 41)
Urbanization culminated in the completion of most
of Whiteley's new building, on the site of the baths,
in 1911. (fn. 42)
In the period between the World Wars, most of
the area remained expensive. (fn. 43) While Bayswater
Road was gradually taken over for flats or hotels,
including the former home of Field-Marshal Sir
John French, earl of Ypres (1852-1925), at no. 94
Lancaster Gate, (fn. 44) the main north-south avenues still
had distinguished residents. Samuel Montagu's
nephew Sir Herbert (later Viscount) Samuel (1870-
1963), the Liberal politician, had three successive
homes in Porchester Terrace, (fn. 45) whose many titled
householders included the Lord Chancellor Viscount Buckmaster (1861-1934), and Field-Marshal
Sir William Robertson (1860-1933) lived in Westbourne Terrace. (fn. 46) Lancaster Gate East and Lancaster Gate West wards, with respective densities of 61
and 78 persons to an acre, were less crowded even
than Maida Vale in 1921 and 1931. Lancaster Gate
East, with 69.5 persons to an acre, still had the
borough's lowest density in 1951. (fn. 47) The Paddington
Estate's cottages around Caroline Place, one of the
oldest parts of Bayswater, which 'might be part of a
country town', were being closed in 1937, although
they had good tenants and did not constitute a slum.
Poverty existed only in pockets: three derelict buildings had to be closed at the corner of Leinster Street
and Porchester Mews, where a family with eight
children lived in two rooms. (fn. 48)
Rebuilding and conversion continued, as leases
fell in. In Porchester Terrace, with its unusually well
spaced villas, nos. 6 and 8 in 1924 were to be turned
into ten flats, whereas nos. 29 and 31 in 1934 were to
be replaced by eight single houses. (fn. 49) Among piecemeal changes were demolitions to make way in 1935
for flats over an office at the corner of Bayswater
Road and Lancaster Gate Road, (fn. 50) in 1934 for flats or
offices over shops between Queen's Road and Inverness Terrace at the Bishop's Road end, where part
of Inver Court had been finished before the Second
World War, and in 1939 for 60 single houses with
garages on a site eventually taken for the Hallfield
estate. (fn. 51) A few very large blocks of flats were completed. They included Maitland Court, at the southeast end of Gloucester Terrace, in 1932, (fn. 52) Queen's
Court of 1930-2 and the slightly later Princess
Court, at first also called Queen's Court, in Queen's
Road, (fn. 53) and Barrie House of 1936-7 and a block of
1938 later called Lancaster in Lancaster Gate. (fn. 54)
Bayswater experienced only sporadic private rebuilding, like Tyburnia, until the borough council
acquired from the Church Commissioners land between Bishop's Bridge Road and Cleveland Square,
an area badly damaged during the Second World
War, for the Hallfield estate. (fn. 55) Plans had been made
by 1948, (fn. 56) the first block of flats was ready in 1952, (fn. 57)
and work was finished in 1959 on the only large
municipal scheme in southern Paddington; the site
had been extended westward by additional land for
schools. (fn. 58) Meanwhile the L.C.C. began the Barrie
estate on a bombed site at the south-west end of
Gloucester Terrace, where the last block was under
construction in 1957. Most of its tenants became
owner-occupiers, forming the Lancaster Gate Housing Association, in the early 1970s. (fn. 59)
The Church Commissioners' decision in 1954 to
reorganize the Paddington Estate involved the renaming and disposal of their Bayswater property as
the Lancaster Gate estate. The holding was less
compact than their Hyde Park and Maida Vale
estates, being mainly residential but including shops
and several hotels. Plans for its sale, with that of outlying properties farther north, were announced in
1955, to include Westbourne Terrace, Cleveland
Square, most of Gloucester Terrace, part of Lancaster Gate and Inverness Terrace, and shops in
Queensway. (fn. 60) An early purchaser, of 65 a. in the
eastern part, was the Royal Liver Co., from which
Maxwell Joseph in 1958 bought 25 a. called Hyde
Park North. The area was also known as 'Sin
Triangle', consisting of 680 properties, mainly
divided houses, from Paddington station to Lancaster Gate. (fn. 61) Eastbourne Terrace was rebuilt as office
blocks between 1957 and 1959 (fn. 62) in partnership with
Max Rayne. The Church Commissioners paid for
the building costs and received half of the profits, in
an experiment whose success encouraged them to
take shares in another 25 joint companies between
1958 and 1962. (fn. 63)
Isolated changes included the building of flats
called Caroline House in Bayswater Road, east of
Orme Square, in the 1950s. (fn. 64) They also included the
building of new hotels from 1961 and the conversion
of older ones into flats. (fn. 65) Among new flats were ones
in St. Petersburgh Place in 1960, at Palace Gate,
Bayswater Road, and Craven Hill Gardens in 1961,
in Palace Court, replacing an ornate French style
house called Saxon Hall, (fn. 66) in Craven Hill in 1965-
6, (fn. 67) and Hyde Park Towers, Bayswater Road, in
1977-9. (fn. 68) Shops and maisonettes were built in Moscow Road in 1961 (fn. 69) and with offices and flats in Consort House, Queensway, completed by 1972. (fn. 70) There
were no large-scale demolitions after that of Eastbourne Terrace, plans for the north-west end of
Westbourne Terrace being frustrated by a preservation order in 1961. (fn. 71) By 1971 conservation had such
support that the demolition of nos. 106-7 Bayswater
Road, part of the former St. Agnes Villas, was followed by a successful campaign to save no. 100,
where J. M. Barrie had written Peter Pan between
1904 and 1907. (fn. 72) Scattered rebuilding nonetheless
continued in Bayswater Road: in 1981 Christ
Church had been demolished, apart from the spire,
and two sites, at the east corner of Queensborough
Terrace and the west corner of Inverness Terrace,
had been cleared by 1985. Renovation was then in
progress in many streets to the north.
Bayswater in 1985 has retained most of its Vic
torian layout, since the only rebuilding on a scale
large enough to destroy the street pattern has been
on the Hallfield estate. It also possesses a greater
variety of 19th-century housing than do the districts
to the east and north, from comparatively plain
villas and cottages of the 1820s and 1830s to increasingly grandiose Italianate terraces of the mid
century and ornate piles of c. 1890. Stuccoed ranges,
resembling those on the edge of Tyburnia, survive
in great numbers near Westbourne Terrace and also,
farther west, around Prince's Square. Most of the
older buildings are in Bayswater conservation area,
established in 1967 and enlarged in 1978, which
extends into Tyburnia. (fn. 73) The length of several
north-south avenues is an unusual feature; they
have no counterparts from east to west, except along
the edges, and have been criticized as inconvenient
and monotonous. Much of the district appears to be
less permanently settled than does Tyburnia, perhaps because many homes are in converted mews
dwellings, whereas the main terraces have escaped
rebuilding only to survive as hotels, boarding houses,
and holiday flats. The eastern and western halves,
moreover, are separated by Queensway, a cosmopolitan shopping street with many late-night restaurants. (fn. 74) There has been a recent rise in organized
prostitution, particularly around Cleveland Square,
where the wide roads have attracted kerb-crawling
motorists. (fn. 75) Noise and vice have also been blamed
on a growth in cheap tourism. (fn. 76)
Bayswater Road, lined with hotels, offices, and
flats, has undergone more rebuilding west of Lancaster Gate than it has to the east. The triangle
formed with Westbourne Street and Lancaster Terrace is wholly filled by the Royal Lancaster hotel,
with the tallest tower in the area and the Bayswater
Road frontage built over Lancaster Gate Underground station. (fn. 77) To the west mid 19th-century
buildings, mainly offices but including the Swan,
with a canopy, (fn. 78) and a modern addition to the Park
Plaza hotel, stretch to the long imposing terraces of
Lancaster Gate.
The layout and the size of the houses have caused
Lancaster Gate to be described as Bayswater's most
ambitious and successful architectural achievement, (fn. 79) although it has also earned disapproval for
treating appearances as more important than the
quality of life. (fn. 80) Two ranges, designed in 1857 by
Sancton Wood, are set back a little from the road,
with two further ranges behind, built c. 1865 to the
designs of John Johnson and flanking a square which
contains the tower of the former Christ Church.
Built as narrow houses of five or six storeys piled on
top of a basement, the ranges are stuccoed and richly
ornamented in a blend of 'English Baroque and
French Mannerism'; (fn. 81) the earliest parts have continuous colonnades along the ground and first floors.
Behind the façades, most of the houses have been
united to form clubs or hotels. Their regularity has
been broken by several insertions, the most prominent being O. H. Leicester's Barrie House, raised
to ten storeys, at the south-west corner of the
square. (fn. 82) The body of Christ Church has been replaced by the six-storeyed Spire House, advertised
in 1985 as 23 luxury flats. (fn. 83)
Isolated survivals from the early 19th century are
nos. 100-101 Bayswater Road, forming a semidetached pair of two storeys over a basement; they
stand behind small gardens and no. 100, at the corner
of Leinster Terrace, bears a plaque to Barrie. Beyond, with rebuilding in progress on two sites, are
modern blocks: Hyde Park Towers, reaching up
Porchester Terrace, the Hospitality Inn, and the
eight-storeyed Porchester Gate. Buildings of c. 1900,
including shops and restaurants, and the older Black
Lion, with a ground-floor extension apparently of
1878, stand east of Queensway. To the west is a
seven-storeyed red-brick and terracotta range by D.
Joseph, who built the superstructures of several
Underground stations; (fn. 84) it consists of the Coburg
hotel, opened in 1907, with three cupolas, over shops
and Queensway station. Next are the seven-storeyed
flats of Caroline House, and the florid red-brick and
terracotta Orme Court. West of Orme Square the
modern white Embassy hotel contrasts with ornate
late 19th-century buildings on either side of the entrance to Palace Court, (fn. 85) including the Guyana High
Commission near the corner of Ossington Street.
Wellington Terrace, a stock-brick survival from the
1830s, stretches to where a tiny house has been inserted over the ditch marking the former Kensington
boundary. (fn. 86)
The oldest houses in Bayswater facing the main
road, apart from nos. 100-1, date from the 1820s and
are at Orme Square. Brown-brick town houses of
three storeys and basements, originally in matching
groups of three, flank the open end of the small
square. An eagle on a double Tuscan column, of unknown origin, stands in front of a garden which is
surrounded on three sides by a mixture of town
houses and Italianate villas, on a modest scale and
with some rebuilding and alterations. (fn. 87)
Palace Court, whose west side backs on Ossington
Street, is 'the most interesting place in the borough
for late Victorian domestic architecture'. (fn. 88) At the
south-east corner King's Fund college occupies no.
2, in red brick and terracotta by William Flockhart,
dated 1891. Similarly florid buildings stand next to
it in Bayswater Road, although originally numbered
with Palace Court, and include the yellow terracotta
Westland hotel, formerly the Yellow House, no. 8,
designed by George & Peto for Percy McQuoid. Set
back from the east side of Palace Court are nos. 10,
12, and 14, the first two forming a pair designed by
J. M. Maclaren with an elaborate stone frieze and an
unusual bow window divided by rounded shafts.
The west side of the road is more coherent, consisting mainly of houses of five storeys and basement,
all in red brick with stone dressings and many with
Dutch gables. They form a terrace, although some
were individually planned. No. 45, formerly Palace
Court House, was designed by Leonard Stokes for
Wilfrid and Alice Meynell in 1889 and soon attracted
architectural students; it has bands of brick and
stone, small windows, and a first-floor bay. (fn. 89) No. 51,
the Red Lodge, was built in 1889 for G. W. Joy. (fn. 90)
Elsewhere in south-western Bayswater there are
humble survivals from c. 1840 on the west side of
Victoria Grove (later Ossington Street and transferred to Kensington) in the form of terraced cottages of two storeys and basement, with a mews
behind. On the west side of St. Petersburgh Place
nos. 19 to 27 are a plain three-storeyed stuccoed
range with a central pediment, next to St. Matthew's
church, and the west side of Bark Place has a terrace
of mid 19th-century Italianate villas of two storeys,
basement, and attic. Orme Court, part of which
faces Bayswater Road, also includes some ornate redbrick and yellow-tiled flats, dated 1896, at the southeast end of Bark Place. Refurbished mews dwellings
survive in Chapel Side and Caroline Place Mews but
many of the cramped streets nearby have been
cleared for small neo-Georgian rows, as in Poplar
Place, Lombardy Place, and Caroline Place. In Moscow Road the massive blocks of late Victorian and
Edwardian flats are notable chiefly for their gauntness, Burnham and Windsor courts being of ten
storeys over basements.
The earliest of the long avenues leading north
from Bayswater Road is Porchester Terrace, which,
in addition to modern flats, still has many stuccoed
villas standing in their own gardens. Near the southeast end, next to Hyde Park Towers, is a stock brick
pair of three storeys over a basement, built in 1823
and occupied from 1825 by J. C. Loudon, who lived
in no. 3 and leased out the adjoining no. 5. Loudon
illustrated the pair as an example of his 'double detached suburban villa', of which it has been seen as
the prototype. (fn. 91) Villas of the 1840s, linked or in
pairs, survive in Craven Hill; most are of three
storeys and attic over a basement and some have
been heightened.
The most spacious and dignified avenue is Westbourne Terrace, begun c. 1840 and 'unrivalled in its
class in London or even Great Britain'. The houses
form long stuccoed terraces of four storeys and attic
over a basement, with pillared porches, many of
them designed by T. Marsh Nelson. (fn. 92) They face
carriage drives and were separated on either side
from the tree-shaded roadway by screen walls surmounted by railings. The parallel Gloucester Terrace is also mostly of the mid 19th century, longer
but narrower; for much of its length each house, of
three storeys and a basement, has a segmental bay
and a shallow porch. Part of the western side has
been replaced by modest brick neo-Georgian flats,
including Devonshire Court, and the southern end
consists of taller blocks: the seven-storeyed Maitland
Court to the east and Garson, Gibray, and Carroll
houses, from six to ten storeys, reaching to Craven
Terrace, to the west. Although houses near the
north-western end have made way for the Hallfield
estate, Gloucester Terrace still provides a vista
stretching north of Bishop's Bridge Road. In contrast Eastbourne Terrace has been entirely rebuilt by
C. H. Elsom, whose higher and lower office blocks
of 1957-9, 'a gaunt bit of plain speaking', have been
praised as forming a sequence as unified as that of
the stuccoed ranges to the west. (fn. 93)
Between Gloucester and Porchester terraces there
are many tall, tree-shaded rows, stuccoed and with
pillared porches, with some discreet infilling. Cleveland Square, which rivalled Lancaster Gate as the
most expensive address in Bayswater, (fn. 94) has an unusually large private garden to serve the massive
range of six storeys and basements on its north side.
Less spacious enclosures are in Queen's Gardens
and Craven Hill Gardens, (fn. 95) to the south. Leinster
Gardens is noted for two sham houses, opposite no.
23, whose façades mask a surfacing of the Underground railway. (fn. 96) Beyond Porchester Terrace, part
of the narrower Queensborough Terrace and much
of Inverness Terrace are similarly made up of stuccoed four- or five-storeyed rows. Inverness Terrace
has two symmetrical ranges facing each other, with
centrepieces, Corinthian pilasters, and continuous
balconies. The ornate Inverness Court hotel is a
former private house, remodelled, with its own
theatre, for Louis Spitzel (d. 1906) by Mewès &
Davis, architects of the Ritz. (fn. 97)
Along Bishop's Bridge Road, from Gloucester
Terrace westward across the end of Porchester Terrace to Inverness Terrace, stretches the Hallfield
estate, (fn. 98) initiated by Sir Denys Lasdun in partnership with Tecton but developed in the 1950s by
Lasdun and Lindsey Drake. Trees have been preserved among the 15 large blocks, of up to ten
storeys, and some smaller blocks, varied in grouping, and a widely praised school (fn. 99) have been provided in an attempt to realize Le Corbusier's scheme
for a city in a park. The materials are in a wide range,
including concrete slabs, variegated brickwork, and
glazed tile, but need expensive maintenance, whose
lack has led Hallfield to be described as a 'graveyard
of good ideas'.
Queensway, in contrast to the other north-south
roads, is almost entirely commercial, although most
of the premises have flats overhead. Nineteenthcentury buildings survive mainly in the middle
portion of the east side, as an assortment south of
Inverness Place, where some are threatened with
demolition, and a long four-storeyed range of c. 1860
from Inverness Place to Porchester Gardens. A
shorter but taller Edwardian range, Beaumanor
Mansions, lines part of the west side. The most
prominent modern insertions include on the east side
no. 26, Consort House, finished in 1972 and designed by Owen Luder in concrete with a red-brick
facing as a ten-storeyed tower and five-storeyed
podium over an underground car park. (fn. 1) Opposite
are the seven-storeyed blocks of the 1930s called
Queen's Court and Princess Court, the first and perhaps both designed by W. Henry White & Sons. (fn. 2)
Queensway is notable for its restaurants and food
shops, many of them foreign.
The tall stuccoed houses typical of eastern Bayswater are also found west of Queensway and north
of Moscow Road, around Leinster, Prince's, and
Kensington Gardens squares. All three squares also
have a range served by private gardens. (fn. 3) Leinster
Square has generally had a slightly lower rateable
value than Prince's Square, perhaps because of the
irregularity of its north range, which is the only terrace in either square not attributable to George
Wyatt. (fn. 4) A few villas of the 1840s, erected for W. K.
Jenkins, (fn. 5) survive nearby in Garway and Monmouth
roads.