Welcome to Corringham

 
 

Terraced houses
(1825 - 1920)

Bayswater was still only a small hamlet in 1807. The Flora Tea Gardens, which included the inn now known as The Swan on Bayswater Road, were an early 19th-century tourist attraction. Bayswater was also known for its coffee house and for its water supply.

Speculative building projects in the area had just started. In the early 1800s the wealthy brickmaker John Elkins realised Bayswater Terrace, next to the Black Lion Inn. Edward Orme, print seller, developed the area around Moscow Road and St Petersburgh Place - probably named after Tsar Alexander I's visit to England in 1814. By 1823 Porchester Terrace had also been laid out to run north to Westbourne Green, and freestanding villas were built along it. The road ended at Hall field - the current Hallfield Estate. There was open land south of Craven Hill, including the Nursery Ground. The Black Lion Lane was renamed Queen's Road on the accession to the throne in 1837 of Queen Victoria, who used to go horse riding there. It would become Queensway in 1936.

Bayswater and Craven Estate (1825)
Bayswater and the Craven Estate (1825) (click for larger image)

Artists, authors and politicians moved into the houses along Craven Hill and Porchester Terrace, attracted to a district that was still "a little quiet piece of Nature". The daughter of the Vincent Novellos, who lived at 4 Craven Hill, wrote: "Our pretty homestead, Craven Hill Cottage, Bayswater, was one of the last lingering remains of the old primitive simplicity of that neighbourhood, ere it became built upon with modern houses, squares and terraces".

13-16 Craven Hill Gardens were designed as four separate residences and built in about 1850. They shared a garden, in which plane trees and lime trees were planted - the same ones that are there today. The land was still owned by the Craven family, who had granted 90-year leases for the buildings.

Large town houses were also constructed in Cleveland Square; Westbourne, Eastbourne and Gloucester Terraces were built in the 1840s and 1850s. The choice for terraces instead of detached houses may have been made to hide the new railway, or perhaps terraces were more popular at the time; they were built along Queen's Road, too, and soon lined Inverness Terrace and Queensborough Terrace. The terraced houses along Lancaster Gate were said to be the most handsome houses in London in 1868.

An article in The Times shows that the leasehold of 13 Craven Hill Gardens was auctioned in 1862 when its first owner, Mr Ellis, died. The house at number 16 was auctioned in 1875. Both leases were to expire in 1939.

Buildings soon covered the whole of Bayswater, including the Westbourne River, which had become part of the Ranelagh sewer. A "great aristocratic town" had appeared with wealthy residents and luxurious shopping facilities such as Whiteley's. Both Whiteley's and the railway companies needed accommodation for their staff, and the Paddington Station brought many visitors to London. The number of hotels, boarding houses and apartments grew rapidly, and the Bayswater population became more cosmopolitan. Nevertheless, the area remained mainly residential and prosperous.

By the late 1800s, Bayswater looked rather like it does today. Occasionally, houses were repaired, altered or replaced, and the infrastructure was further improved. Bayswater Underground Station was opened in 1868, followed by Queen's Road Underground Station in 1901. Porchester Baths were built at the end of Queen's Road and Whiteley's new building was completed in 1911.