Colville Terrace, W11

Road in/near Notting Hill, existing between 1865 and now.

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Road · * · W11 ·
October
15
2022
Colville Terrace, W11 has strong movie connnections.

Colville Terrace began the 20th century well-to-do but some time before World War Two the houses became multi-occupied. The street suffered some bomb damage in the Blitz and hosted the local communists’ headquarters. In the late 50s numbers 2, 9, 10, 19, 22 and 24 were Rachman houses occupied by West Indian immigrants and prostitutes, including Majbritt Morrison who wrote the ’Jungle West 11’ book.

In the 1958 riots they became targets for the fascist-influenced local mob. In 1960 the basement of number 24 was put under police surveillance and duly established to be a brothel. Michael de Freitas, who was living on the top floor, was arrested but the police couldn’t prove he was the landlord.
Colville Terrace also hosted several West Indian blues clubs including Sheriff’s gym and the Barbadian La Paloma. In the early 70s number 42, at the east end of Powis Square, became renowned as the gay hippy commune, which was evicted and re-housed by Notting Hill Housing Trust. The Colville Nursery Pat McDonald gates are dedicated to the People’s Association community activist play worker, who was murdered by her husband.

In 1963, the year of the Profumo affair and Rachman slum housing revelations, the Colville film ’West Eleven’ was adapted by Michael Winner from ’The Furnished Room’ novel by the long-standing Portobello market trader Laura del Rio. The classic North Kensington kitchen-sink melodrama is partly set on Colville Terrace on the south side of Powis Square. Alfred Lynch stars as the archetypal local anti-hero ‘Joe Beckett’, who is offered £10,000 to commit a murder. In the opening sequence he walks through Powis Square to his bed-sit on Colville Terrace, passing the future location of Mick Jagger’s house in ’Performance’.

A young David Hemmings appears as a local hooligan in Powis Square and Diana Dors as a beat girl. Halliwell called it a ‘dingy but not very convincing ‘realist’ melodrama with jazzy style which induces weariness.’ The ’West Eleven’ theme is by the jazz clarinetist Acker Bilk and also features the jazz/skiffle trumpeter Ken Collyer. Michael Winner’s grandfather had a tailor’s shop at 167/9 Portobello Road, round the corner of Colville Terrace next to the Star bar.

The street is associated with several Michaels; as well as de Freitas/X/Abdul Malik, the Rachman associate Black Power leader, there’s Horovitz, the ongoing local beat poet; Moorcock, the sci-fantasy author Hawkwind member, and the film director Winner. The next most renowned residents after Michael X are Horovitz and Moorcock. The hippy doctor Sam Hutt-turned-alternative country and western singer Hank Wangford is another. In ’Performance’ in 1968 James Fox, as the gangster Chas, arrives on Colville Terrace on the west corner of Powis Square. In 1976 Marvin Gaye was photographed at the same place. The wall between Colville Road and Powis Square featured ‘Rachman was right’ graffiti. In 2007 the junction with Portobello Road was transformed back to the 60s for a scene in ’Hippie Hippie Shake’, the yet to be released film of the memoirs of the Oz.



Main source: It’s Your Colville
Further citations and sources


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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LOCALITY

Lived here
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.

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Comment
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

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Lived here
Richard   
Added: 12 Jul 2022 21:36 GMT   

Elgin Crescent, W11
Richard Laitner (1955-1983), a barrister training to be a doctor at UCL, lived here in 1983. He was murdered aged 28 with both his parents after attending his sister’s wedding in Sheffield in 1983. The Richard Laitner Memorial Fund maintains bursaries in his memory at UCL Medical School

Source: Ancestry Library Edition

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Richard   
Added: 12 Jul 2022 21:39 GMT   

Elgin Crescent, W11
Richard Laitner lived at 24 Elgin Crescent

Source: Ancestry Library Edition

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Christian   
Added: 31 Oct 2023 10:34 GMT   

Cornwall Road, W11
Photo shows William Richard Hoare’s chemist shop at 121 Cornwall Road.

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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Comment
Wendy    
Added: 22 Mar 2024 15:33 GMT   

Polygon Buildings
Following the demolition of the Polygon, and prior to the construction of Oakshott Court in 1974, 4 tenement type blocks of flats were built on the site at Clarendon Sq/Phoenix Rd called Polygon Buildings. These were primarily for people working for the Midland Railway and subsequently British Rail. My family lived for 5 years in Block C in the 1950s. It seems that very few photos exist of these buildings.

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Steve   
Added: 19 Mar 2024 08:42 GMT   

Road construction and houses completed
New Charleville Circus road layout shown on Stanford’s Library Map Of London And Its Suburbs 1879 with access via West Hill only.

Plans showing street numbering were recorded in 1888 so we can concluded the houses in Charleville Circus were built by this date.

Source: Charleville Circus, Sydenham, London

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Comment
Steve   
Added: 19 Mar 2024 08:04 GMT   

Charleville Circus, Sydenham: One Place Study (OPS)
One Place Study’s (OPS) are a recent innovation to research and record historical facts/events/people focused on a single place �’ building, street, town etc.

I have created an open access OPS of Charleville Circus on WikiTree that has over a million members across the globe working on a single family tree for everyone to enjoy, for free, forever.

Source: Charleville Circus, Sydenham, London

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Comment
Charles   
Added: 8 Mar 2024 20:45 GMT   

My House
I want to know who lived in my house in the 1860’s.

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NH   
Added: 7 Mar 2024 11:41 GMT   

Telephone House
Donald Hunter House, formerly Telephone House, was the BT Offices closed in 2000

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Comment
Paul Cox   
Added: 5 Mar 2024 22:18 GMT   

War damage reinstatement plans of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street
Whilst clearing my elderly Mothers house of general detritus, I’ve come across original plans (one on acetate) of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street. Might they be of interest or should I just dispose of them? There are 4 copies seemingly from the one single acetate example. Seems a shame to just junk them as the level of detail is exquisite. No worries if of no interest, but thought I’d put it out there.

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Comment
Diana   
Added: 28 Feb 2024 13:52 GMT   

New Inn Yard, E1
My great grandparents x 6 lived in New Inn Yard. On this date, their son was baptised in nearby St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

Source: BDM London, Cripplegate and Shoreditch registers written by church clerk.

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Comment
Vic Stanley   
Added: 24 Feb 2024 17:38 GMT   

Postcose
The postcode is SE15, NOT SE1

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LOCAL PHOTOS
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Coronation street party, 1953.
TUM image id: 1545250697
Licence: CC BY 2.0
Notting Hill
TUM image id: 1510169244
Licence: CC BY 2.0
The Prince of Wales
TUM image id: 1556874951
Licence: CC BY 2.0
Pembridge Road (1900s)
TUM image id: 1556889569
Licence: CC BY 2.0
Kensington Park Hotel
TUM image id: 1453375720
Licence: CC BY 2.0
The Albion, now in residential use.
TUM image id: 1556404154
Licence: CC BY 2.0

In the neighbourhood...

Click an image below for a better view...
Children of Ruston Close This road was the renaming of Rillington Place. Even after renaming, this street, where notorious murders had taken place, proved too much to avoid subsequent demolition.
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Notting Hill
Licence: CC BY 2.0


The Tile Kiln, Notting Dale (1824)
Credit: Florence Gladstone
Licence: CC BY 2.0


Pembridge Road (1900s)
Licence: CC BY 2.0


The Tabernacle is a Grade II*-listed building in Powis Square, W11 built in 1887 as a church. Photographed here in 2010.
Credit: Asteuartw
Licence: CC BY 2.0


Duke of Cornwall, Ledbury Road W11, around 1990. Later the Ledbury restaurant, holder of two Michelin Stars
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St Peter's Notting Hill
Credit: Asteuartw
Licence: CC BY 2.0


Kensington Hippodrome, about 1840, showing St John’s Hill in the background.
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SARM Studios, a recording studio, was established by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. They were originally known as Basing Street Studios. It has also been known in the past as Island Studios. SARM is an aconym of Sound and Recording Mobiles. At the studios, built inside a former church that had been deconsecrated, Blackwell recorded a number of artists there for Island Records, such as Iron Maiden, Bob Marley, Steve Winwood, Free, Bad Company, Robert Palmer, Jimmy Cliff, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, King Crimson, John Martyn, Mott the Hoople, Quintessence, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, Sparks, Cat Stevens, Spooky Tooth, Traffic, If, Jethro Tull, the Average White Band, and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
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West end of Bevington Road, near to the Golborne Road junction - late 1950s or early 1960s.
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