The long and winding history of Lansdowne Road

In 1819, James Weller inherited the estate of his wealthy uncle. It included a country house in Surrey, farmland in Essex and Middlesex, and 170 acres of open fields surrounding the hamlet of Notting Hill. The one condition of the inheritance was that Weller adopt his uncle’s surname: Ladbroke.

James Ladbroke had little interest in the Notting Hill fields and left the running of the estate to his lawyers. But those lawyers, encouraged by the building boom of the early 1820s, applied to Parliament for the right to develop the estate. They even hired an architect and surveyor, Thomas Allason, to draw up plans for a new London neighbourhood.

Allason had travelled in Italy and Greece, producing sketches of celebrated classical sites. He was also inspired by John Nash, who had designed the magnificent terraces surrounding Regent’s Park. This period saw spa towns like Cheltenham and Bath peaking in popularity, and so Allason planned a new classical suburb on the edge of London.

Allason’s designs for the Ladbroke Estate featured a ring of garden squares, radiating out from a central circus. However, in 1825, a financial crisis was triggered by speculative investments in South America, causing a stock market crash. Allason’s plans were shelved.

By the mid-nineteenth century, building work was underway to realise the design. The new neighbourhood featured terraces of stucco houses, surrounding sixteen garden squares. At this point, the Ladbroke Estate had been divided up among developers, but thanks to Allason’s plan, the neighbourhood retained its spacious layout and spectacular vistas.

One of the most attractive streets was Lansdowne Road. The street was lined with villas set back from the road, often decorated with pilasters and classical details, as well as terraces of stucco-fronted houses topped with Dutch gables. Mocked at the time, they now feature in many photographs capturing the pastel-painted beauty of Notting Hill.

Much of Lansdowne Road was owned by Dr Samuel Walker. A clergyman from Cornwall, he had inherited a small fortune and hoped that, by dabbling in property development, he could endow a bishopric in his beloved home county.

Sadly, Walker’s timing was wrong. He bought when prices were high and lent large sums to his builder. But another market slump – in 1854 – meant that demand for these impressive properties disappeared.

Dr Walker fled to the continent while his builder declared bankruptcy. For a decade, the neighbourhood was filled with unfinished houses. Thankfully, by the 1860s, demand returned as London expanded and the houses were acquired by prosperous members of the professional classes. An early resident was Howard Staunton, a brilliant chess player who organised the first international tournament for the game in the 1850s.

By the twentieth century, Notting Hill was acquiring a bohemian reputation. No.17 Lansdowne Road became ‘Blavatsky Lodge’, the London home of the Theosophical Society. Meanwhile, Lansdowne House at the southern end of the street – a purpose-built collection of artists’ studios – was completed in 1904.

One of the most remarkable residents was the Scottish writer Janet Adam Smith. She was described by one friend as: ‘Biographer, mountaineer, critic, literary editor, textual scholar, comic versifier, visiting professor, hostess, anthologist, traveller – there seemed to be nothing at which Janet Adam Smith did not shine.’

However, the street was also home to politicians and statesmen, including Sir Lancelot Graham, first governor of Sindh, and Anthony Crossland, the Labour politician who ended his career as Foreign Secretary.

Today, those large Victorian villas are some of the most sought-after houses in the city. Many of them back onto beautiful communal gardens, including Hanover Garden, Lansdowne Crescent Garden and Rosmead Garden – made famous in the film Notting Hill.

Despite the winding path it has taken, on Lansdowne Road, Thomas Allason’s dream of creating a leafy classical retreat in West London was finally realised.