NORTH KENSINGTON

'North Kensington' is an area of west London lying north of Notting Hill Gate and south of Harrow Road.
North Kensington is the key neighbourhood of Notting Hill. It is where most of the violence of the Notting Hill Race Riots of 1958 occurred, where the Notting Hill Carnival started and where most of the scenes in the Notting Hill film were shot.
Even the area’s main transport hub, Ladbroke Grove tube station, was originally called Notting Hill from its opening in 1864 until 1919. The name was changed then to avoid confusion with the new Notting Hill Gate station.
Estate agents now call the super-rich area to the south Notting Hill; they are in fact referring to the neighbourhoods of Notting Hill Gate and Holland Park.
North Kensington was once an area well-known for its slum housing, as documented in the photographs of Roger Mayne Yet property prices have now reached dizzying heights as hordes of international investment bankers buy up the stuccoed Victorian houses.
However, North Kensington still has high levels of poverty and unemployment and a high-proportion of social (taxpayer-subsidised) housing for rent. This means that it retains the cultural and class mix which has always made it a vigorous, exciting and, at times, dangerous neighbourhood.
Waves of immigrants have arrived for at least a century including, but certainly not limited to, the Irish, the Jews, the West Indians, the Spanish, the Moroccans and many from the Horn of Africa and Eastern Europe. This constant renewal of the population makes the area one of the most cosmopolitan in the world.
Though Ladbroke Grove is the area’s main thoroughfare, its best known street is Portobello Road with its street market. Many locals say that Golborne Road, at the northern end of Portobello Road, is a good representation of what Portobello Road was like before companies like Starbucks and American Apparel colonised Portobello.

Contents

Notable Residents and Natives

External links

Notable Residents and Natives

★ Joss Ackland, actor, born in North Kensington on February 29, 1928.

★ David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party resides in Notting Hill.

★ Martin Lewis, financial journalist, resides in North Kensington.

★ Alan Mullery, footballer, born in Notting Hill November 23, 1941

★ John Murray, Middlesex and England wicketkeeper, born in North Kensington, April 1, 1935

★ Reg Routledge, Middlesex cricketer, born in North Kensington 1920

External links

★ Notting Hill Nonsense, a website about life in North Kensington, the true heart of Notting Hill.

★ Golborne Life, the community website for the Golborne Road area of North Kensington.