How London acquired its own Royal Crescent

Holland Park is home to some of London's most beautiful streets. From avenues lined with Victorian villas to the cobbled mews of delightful cottages. One of its finest addresses is the Royal Crescent, a great arc of stucco townhouses surrounding a central garden.

The crescent was designed in 1839. It consists of two curving terraces of four-storey properties, decorated with porticoed entrances and Italianate facades. At each end stands a curving corner house, with a Regency bow window rising into a tower.

The architect was Robert Cantwell, who laid out much of the Norland Estate. This neighbourhood occupies the estate of the former Norland House, to the north of Holland Park Avenue. In 1839, the estate was purchased by a solicitor named Charles Richardson, who hoped a new neighbourhood on the western edge of London would make his fortune.

Thanks to the spread of West London Railway in 1844 and then the Metropolitan Railway in 1863, local development was on the rise. By the mid-Victorian era, new stations had opened in Notting Hill and Shepherd’s Bush, causing a flurry of building projects.

But Richardson struggled to fill his grand new houses, which many considered too far from central London. In fact, the name of the street was likely changed from Norland to Royal Crescent in an effort to attract more buyers. However, it was not until 1856 that the properties were fully occupied, by which time Richardson was bankrupt.

London is not the only city to contain a crescent. To this day, there are examples in Oxford and Brighton, Buxton and Hove, Limerick and Dublin, while the longest crescent in Europe can be found in the Clifton neighbourhood of Bristol.

These glorious streets were all imitations of the original crescent found in Bath. In fact, the celebrated spa town boasts three: Somerset Place, Lansdown Crescent and the world-famous Royal Crescent.

Bath's influential architectural heritage dates back to the eighteenth century, when it became the most popular spa town in Georgian Britain. As the city expanded to accommodate more tourists, new streets and squares were built outside the medieval walls.

Many of these were speculative developments, designed by a local architect named John Wood. He combined a devotion to Palladian principles with an obsessive interest in Freemasonry and Ancient British history.

Wood pioneered the classical terraces built from cream-coloured limestone that became the city’s signature. His most famous design was the Circus, a ring of houses constructed between 1754 and 1768, with a circular layout mapping the proportions of Stonehenge. Meanwhile, its facades combined motifs of the three classical orders with Masonic symbols.

Although the Circus was Wood’s masterpiece, he died before it could be completed. Instead, the project was finished by his son – John Wood the Younger – who then built the Royal Crescent.

Though the Crescent was less ornate than the Circus, its scale was far more impressive. The enclosed ring was replaced by a great arc of houses that overlooked an expanse of parkland. At the time, this marked the city’s western edge, meaning residents had an uninterrupted view of the Somerset countryside.

The Woods’s work inspired designers in almost every town and city influenced by Georgian architecture. As well as the graceful classical proportions of their buildings, architects imitated their blending of urban and rural landscapes, known as rus in urbe.

So, when Holland Park acquired its own crescent, the half-moon garden was a standout feature. Enclosed by cast-iron railings, it featured lawns, flower beds, and paths, as well as a mix of chestnuts, ash trees and blackthorns along the border.

Thanks to this garden, London’s Royal Crescent eventually became a sought-after address, home to authors, broadcasters, fashion designers – and even a magician. What’s more, the present garden boasts some of the plane trees planted for the original development.

The garden has been lovingly cared for over the years, its iron railings replaced in the 1990s and a wooden gazebo erected at the centre. On summer evenings, local residents can host drinks and dinner parties underneath its shelter, surrounded by beds of peonies and allium, by borders of elm and ash. On such evenings, Charles Richardson’s dream of creating a crescent worthy of London has surely been realised.

Explore a home for sale on Royal Crescent.