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  Lady Townshend Added: 8 Sep 2023 16:02 GMT | Tenant at Westbourne (1807 - 1811) I think that the 3rd Marquess Townshend - at that time Lord Chartley - was a tenant living either at Westbourne Manor or at Bridge House. He undertook considerable building work there as well as creating gardens. I am trying to trace which house it was. Any ideas gratefully received Reply |
  Tom Vague Added: 9 Sep 2020 14:02 GMT | The Bedford family at 3 Acklam Road (1860 - 1965) From the 19th century up until 1965, number 3 Acklam Road, near the Portobello Road junction, was occupied by the Bedford family. When the Westway construction work began the Bedfords sold up and moved to south London. In the early 1970s the house was taken over by the North Kensington Amenity Trust and became the Notting Hill Carnival office before its eventual demolition. Anne Bedford (now McSweeney) has fond memories of living there, although she recalls: ‘I now know that the conditions were far from ideal but then I knew no different. There was no running hot water, inside toilet or bath, apart from the tin bath we used once a week in the large kitchen/dining room. Any hot water needed was heated in a kettle. I wasn’t aware that there were people not far away who were a lot worse off than us, living in poverty in houses just like mine but families renting one room. We did have a toilet/bathroom installed in 1959, which was ‘luxury’. ‘When the plans for the Westway were coming to light, we were still living in the house whilst all the houses opposite became empty and boarded up one by one. We watched all this going on and decided that it was not going to be a good place to be once the builders moved in to demolish all the houses and start work on the elevated road. Dad sold the house for a fraction of what it should have been worth but it needed too much doing to it to bring it to a good living standard. We were not rich by any means but we were not poor. My grandmother used to do her washing in the basement once a week by lighting a fire in a big concrete copper to heat the water, which would have been there until demolition. ‘When we moved from number 3, I remember the upright piano that my grandparents used to play �’ and me of sorts �’ being lowered out of the top floor and taken away, presumably to be sold. I used to play with balls up on the wall of the chemist shop on the corner of Acklam and Portobello. We would mark numbers on the pavement slabs in a grid and play hopscotch. At the Portobello corner, on one side there was the Duke of Sussex pub, on the other corner, a chemist, later owned by a Mr Fish, which I thought was amusing. When I was very young I remember every evening a man peddling along Acklam Road with a long thin stick with which he lit the streetlights.’ Michelle Active who lived at number 33 remembers: ‘6 of us lived in a one-bed basement flat on Acklam Road. When they demolished it we moved to a 4-bed maisonette on Silchester Estate and I thought it was a palace, two toilets inside, a separate bathroom that was not in the kitchen, absolute heaven.’ Reply |
  PETER FAIRCLOUGH Added: 10 May 2021 14:46 GMT | We once lived here My family resided at number 53 Brindley Street Paddington. My grandparents George and Elizabeth Jenkinson (ne Fowler) had four children with my Mother Olive Fairclough (ne Jenkinson) being born in the house on 30/09/1935. She died on 29/04/2021 aged 85 being the last surviving of the four siblings Reply |
 David Jones-Parry Added: 7 Sep 2017 12:13 GMT | Mcgregor Road, W11 (1938 - 1957) I was born n bred at 25 Mc Gregor Rd in 1938 and lived there until I joined the Royal Navy in 1957. It was a very interesting time what with air raid shelters,bombed houses,water tanks all sorts of areas for little boys to collect scrap and sell them on.no questions asked.A very happy boyhood -from there we could visit most areas of London by bus and tube and we did. Reply |
 Added: 30 Dec 2022 21:41 GMT | Southam Street, W10 do any one remember J&A DEMOLITON at harrow rd kensal green my dad work for them in a aec 6 wheel tipper got a photo of him in it Reply |
 charlie evans Added: 10 Apr 2021 18:51 GMT | apollo pub 1950s Ted Lengthorne was the landlord of the apollo in the 1950s. A local called darkie broom who lived at number 5 lancaster road used to be the potman,I remember being in the appollo at a street party that was moved inside the pub because of rain for the queens coronation . Not sure how long the lengthornes had the pub but remember teds daughter julie being landlady in the early 1970,s Reply |
  Christian Added: 31 Oct 2023 10:34 GMT | Cornwall Road, W11 Photo shows William Richard Hoare’s chemist shop at 121 Cornwall Road. Reply |
Added: 22 Aug 2023 12:31 GMT | Hampden Street, W2 My great great grandparents William and Hannah Playford lived at 60 Hampden Street from the mid 1880s when they moved from rural poverty in Norfolk to inner city hardship in Paddington and where all their children were born. My great grandfather was a road sweeper and sold cat meat. They had seven children in all, of whom five survived infancy: three boys who all volunteered for the army at the outbreak of WW1 and miraculously returned via Salonika, France and a German POW camp; and two daughters, the eldest of whom was my great grandmother, Annie Playford b 1888. She had an illegitimate daughter in 1910, my grandmother Hilda Sarah Catherine. She brought her up singlehandedly and assumed a false married name to conceal her (then socially unacceptable) status as a single mother. In fact she never married and would never tell my grandmother anything about her father. Because of her longevity (she died in 1986) I remember Annie very well. As a child I perceived her as grumpy, uncommunicative, unsocial and a voracious eater. Of course as an adult I realised this was borne from pride loneliness, ill health, a grim determination to survive, and hunger. Somehow she did survive on her own as a single parent, despite lack of family support and serious deprivation. She worked three back breaking menial cleaning jobs over many years to make ends meet. With the advent of DNA I now know the identity of my grandmother’s father which she always dearly wished to know herself. She used to ask her mother if she loved her. The answer: "I kept you, didn’t I?" In the context of the times, I think that says it all. I only wish nanny was still here so that I could tell her all about her father. Reply |
 Dave Hinves Added: 27 Nov 2024 03:55 GMT | he was a School Teacher Henry sailed from Graves End 1849 on ’The Woodbridge’ arrived South Australia 1850. In 1858 he married Julia Ann Walsh at Burra, South Australia, they had 3 children, and 36 grand children. Died 24 June 1896 at Wilmington, South Australia. He is my 1st cousin 3x removed. Reply |
 Kevin Pont Added: 23 Nov 2024 17:03 GMT | St Georges Square This is rather lovely and well worth a visit! Reply |
Simon Chapman Added: 22 Nov 2024 17:47 GMT | Blossom Place My Great Great Grandmother, Harriett Robbins lived in 2 Blossom Place in 1865 before marrying my Great Great Grandfather. They moved to 23 Spitall Square. Reply |
Mark G Added: 26 Oct 2024 21:54 GMT | Skidmore Street, E1 Skidmore Street was located where present day Ernest Street and Solebay Street now stand. They are both located above Shandy Street and Commodore Street. Reply |
 Alan Russell Added: 26 Oct 2024 14:36 GMT | Cheshire Street, London E2 - 1969 Cheshire Street, London E2 - 1969 Reply |
 GrahamClayton Added: 10 Oct 2024 19:42 GMT | Armed guard during 1919 civil unrest During the 1919 civil unrest, a company of soldiers guarded the power station day and night - if it was forced to close down, a large part of London’s transport system would be inoperable. Reply |
 Mark G Added: 6 Oct 2024 15:08 GMT | Change of Road Name to SARK WALK All of the terraced slum housing on JERSEY ROAD was demolished and the area rebuilt with modern housing in the late 1940’s, early 1950’s. Subsequently, the road was renamed SARK WALK. Reply |
 B Willmot Added: 24 Sep 2024 00:39 GMT | King Charles Street, SW1A My Great Grandfather (Joseph William Willmot) started school here in Charles St - Penley’s College in 1857. Reply |