
Canal side house in Westbourne Park
When the Grand Junction Canal was dug, John White, the owner of
Westbourne Farm and an architect, built Bridge House on the north bank of the new canal in 1805.
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Bridge House
Desborough Lodge Desborough Lodge was a house which was one of five grand houses in the village of Westbourne Green. Kilburn Aqueduct Some way from the area now called Kilburn, the Kilburn Aqueduct of the Grand Union Canal spanned the River Westbourne. Orme’s Green Ormes Green was the former name for this part of Westbourne Park. Red Lion Bridge Harrow Road once spanned the River Westbourne at this point. Royal Oak Royal Oak is a station on the Hammersmith and City Line, between Westbourne Park and Paddington stations, and is the least used station on the Hammersmith and City line. Spotted Dog The Spotted Dog public house was one of the earliest buildings in Westbourne Green. Westbourne Farm Westbourne Farm - an old farm with a theatrical connection. Windsor Castle The Windsor Castle dates from the 1820s but its main incarnation was as a classic Victorian public house, seminal in 1970s musical history. Alfred Road, W2 Alfred Road is the last survivor of a set of Victorian streets. Amberley Mews, W9 Amberley Mews starred as Tom Riley’s home in the 1950 movie "The Blue Lamp". Ascot House, W9 Ascot House was built as part of the GLC’s small Windsor estate. Bourne Terrace, W2 Bourne Terrace is part of the Warwick Estate in Paddington and has 38 properties. Cirencester Street, W2 Cirencester Street came about in the 1860s but was shortened when the Warwick Estate was built. Clearwell Drive, W9 Clearwell Drive is a newer street, roughly built over the line of the former Amberley Mews. Desborough Close, W2 Desborough Close was named after Desborough House which was demolished in the 19th century. Goldney Road, W9 Goldney Road was built around 1860 on land which was once the property of Westminster Abbey. Harrow Road, W9 Harrow Road is a main road running through Paddington, Willesden and beyond. Oldbury House, W2 Oldbury House is a shopping parade along the Harrow Road with accommodation above, part of the Warwick Estate development. Walterton Road, W9 Walterton Road was the central road of a suburb which was originally proposed to called St. Peter’s Park.
The story of the building of a suburb.Westbourne Green had only a few houses by 1745, mostly south of the point where
Harrow Road had a junction with Westbourne Green Lane (also known as Black Lion Lane) running northward from the Uxbridge Road. A footpath later called Bishop’s Walk (eventually Bishop’s Bridge Road) provided a short cut to Paddington Green. The Red Lion, where
Harrow Road bridged the Westbourne, and another inn were recorded in 1730. The second inn was probably one called the Jolly Gardeners in 1760 and the Three Jolly Gardeners in 1770, near the
Harrow Road junction, where it probably made way for the Spotted Dog.
The early 19th-century village contained five notable residences: Westbourne Place, west of Black Lion Lane at its junction with
Harrow Road, and, from south to north on the east side of
Harrow Road, Desborough Lodge, Westbourne Farm, Bridge House, and Westbourne Manor House. Bridge House was built c. 1805 by the architect John White, owner of Westbourne Farm.
Westbourne Green had a very refined air in 1795 and was still considered a beautiful rural place in 1820. The Grand Junction canal, passing north of the village between the grounds of Westbourne Farm and Bridge House, was a scenic enhancement, later used to attract expensive building to the area. Although housing was spreading along Black Lion Lane, it had not reached Westbourne Green by 1828, when a house later called Elm Lodge stood north-west of Westbourne Manor House. There was also a short row, later called Belsize Villas, alone to the west on the south side of
Harrow Road at Orme’s Green, by 1830. The main addition was at the southern end of the village, opposite Bishop’s Walk, where Pickering Terrace (later part of Porchester Road), backed by a double row called Pickering Place, formed a compact block of cottages amid the fields.
The cutting of the G.W.R. line across the middle of Westbourne Green was begun in 1836, necessitating a slight northward realignment of
Harrow Road east of its junction with Black Lion Lane, where a turnpike gate was moved. Since the railway obstructed the Paddington green end of Bishop’s Walk, the footpath was replaced by Bishop’s Road, soon extended westward as Westbourne Grove. (Although no large houses were demolished, the railway passed close to Westbourne Park, from which Lord Hill moved out. By 1840 several new roads were projected, including Westbourne Grove. Houses had been built there by 1842, when the Lock hospital, giving its name to the Lock bridge where
Harrow Road crossed the canal, stood opposite Westbourne Manor House to the north. The centre of the area, however, along
Harrow Road and on either side of the railway, remained empty.
Housing spread in the 1840s, mainly south of the railway. The eastern end of Bishop’s Road was built up and at first called Westbourne Place, where the publisher George Smith was visited by Charlotte Bronte in 1848 and 1849. Further north, residential growth was curtailed by the G.W.R. depots and sidings. Immediately to the west, where the Paddington Estate straddled the Westbourne, roads were laid out, with bridges over the railway to link them with
Harrow Road. Holy Trinity church was finished in 1846 and Orsett Terrace, Gloucester Crescent (later the northernmost part of Gloucester Terrace), and Porchester Square had been planned by 1851. No. 37 Gloucester Gardens, Bishop’s Road, was the London home of the architect Decimus Burton by 1855. Most of the area between Bishop’s Road and the railway had been filled by 1855, except the site of Penny’s House, which was to be taken in 1871 for Royal Oak station.
A builder, William Scantlebury, erected much of the neighbourhood around Orsett Terrace and Gloucester Crescent, where he took leases in 1849-50 and 1852 respectively. John Scantlebury of Porchester Terrace North built part of Porchester Square, where many plots were subleased by George Wyatt between 1853 and 1855.
Farther west building had already begun for William Kinnaird Jenkins, a lawyer who also acquired part of the Ladbroke estate from W. H. Jenkins and was responsible for laying out Kensal New Town. Houses were planned for W. K. Jenkins along both sides of Westbourne Grove, west of Pickering Place, in 1838 and along an extension of Westbourne Grove in 1840. They were detached villas, like those to be built for him in Newton Road in 1846, when he also had plans for Hereford Road. More land in Hereford Road was leased out by the Paddington Estate between 1853 and 1855, much of it for terraces by J. P. Waterson, a Bayswater builder, who assigned his interest in several sites to John Wicking Phillips. To the north, Westbourne Park and its grounds made way for large semidetached villas in Westbourne Park Road and, beside the railway,
Westbourne Park Villas. No. 16
Westbourne Park Villas from 1863 to 1867 was the intermittent home of Thomas Hardy, who also lived briefly at no. 4 Celbridge Place (later Porchester Road) and in Newton Road. Fields survived between Westbourne Park Road and Newton Road in 1851 but had been covered with modest terraces by 1855, when St. Stephen’s church was being built.
Between the railway and the canal, the pace of building and the social pattern were more varied. The eastern part, where
Delamere Terrace lined the canal and Warwick Crescent overlooked the pool, was begun as an extension of Little Venice. Leases for 13 houses in
Westbourne Terrace Road were taken in 1847 by G. L. Taylor, architect of some of the grandest houses in Tyburnia and Maida Vale, who also built in Blomfield Terrace, along
Harrow Road. Other lessees included William Buddle, for 19 houses in Blomfield Street (later Villas) and
Delamere Terrace in 1851 and 12 in Warwick Crescent, where plots were assigned to him by G. L. Taylor in 1852. Early residents included Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sister Arabel Barrett in
Delamere Terrace; in order to be near her Robert Browning moved from lodgings at no. 1
Chichester Road and made his English home at no. 19 Warwick Crescent from 1862 until 1887.
Farther west, beyond Ranelagh (from 1938 Lord Hill’s) Road, building was slightly delayed by the survival until after 1855 of Desborough Lodge and Westbourne Farm.
Brindley Street,
Alfred Road, and their neighbours already formed densely packed terraces west of the Lock Bridge and
Harrow Road. By 1861 Desborough Lodge and Westbourne Farm had made way for Clarendon, Woodchester and
Cirencester Streets, whose small houses resembled those around
Brindley Street rather than the stately terraces to the east.
North of the canal, the workhouse was built next to the Lock in 1846-7. Building, although not the imposing crescent planned in 1847, stretched from there along the south side of
Harrow Road to
Woodfield Road at Orme’s Green by 1855.
The 1860s saw housing, which had ended in 1855 at St. Stephen’s Church and Hereford Road, spread to the Kensington boundary.
North of the canal the site of Westbourne Manor House was built over from 1867 and
Amberley Road with its timber wharves was built along the canal bank. The whole of Westbourne Green thus came to be built up.