Notting Hill is crowded on Saturdays, as tourists and locals mob the streets and rambling Portobello Road Market. And the reward at the end of the road is the still lively but low-key global London atmosphere of Golborne Road.
Here among the fruit and vegetable sellers, fish shops, cafes selling delicious Portuguese pastries and stores selling everything from Moroccan tea pots to vintage fabrics and trimmings, second-hand shops spill their wares onto the sidewalk and prices tend to be slightly lower than up the road for used furniture and antiques...
And the Brutalist building looming nearby is the landmark 31-story Trellick Tower, designed by Erno Goldfinger (friend of Ian Flemming and famous Bond character namesake) and built from 1968-72. Now a listed building, Trellick Tower is a mix of price-regulated city housing (known in Britain as the “council flat”) and minority private ownership.
The gritty high-rise was largely seen as a glaring example of all that was wrong with the high-rise apartment when it was built -- and degenerated into a crime-ridden hellhole in the 1980s. But it has recently become a cult address for hip Londoners.
- Kristin Hohenadel blogging from rue Vieille du Temple, Paris, France. She can be reached at kristin @ apartmenttherapy . com
The fabric picture is of The Cloth Shop at 290 Portobello Road just near the flyover - very good for linens and wool suiting and they have vintage table and bed linens too
view Violetsrose's profile
Yes, thank you for pointing that out! It's not far from Golborne Road, but is indeed on Portobello.
view Kristin Hohenadel's profile
I guess the slideshow goes too fast to catch that info in the caption!
view Kristin Hohenadel's profile
OMG....the Trellick Tower makes me want to hurle myself off of a balcony...No...wait....there ARE no balconies!
view hdtex's profile
Nice to see some posts about our fair city! Ian Fleming and Erno Goldfinger actually became deadly enemies over the matter of planning permission for Goldfingers' modernist house in Willow Road, Hampstead (Fleming was a traditionalist who couldn't bear the thought of a modern house in genteel Hampstead). I believe Fleming used Goldfinger's name in the novel as a way of getting back at him.
view bobble's profile
Indeed - the flyover end of Portobello road is just round the corner from Golborne Road
view Violetsrose's profile