London's pastel terraces
Notting Hill
Victorian terraces painted pink, blue, yellow and lilac, and a summer carnival of feathers and sequins.
Why Notting Hill is pastel pink
Notting Hill is a district of west London, built up in the mid 19th century with white stucco terraces. By the mid 20th century much of it was run-down and crowded, and it became home to many families from the Caribbean. As the area revived, owners began painting the plain fronts, and streets such as Lancaster Road and the mews behind Portobello Road are now runs of pastel pink, blue, yellow, green and lilac. Portobello Road itself has a long street market. Each August the Notting Hill Carnival, first held in the 1960s and led by the Caribbean community, fills the streets with steel bands and costumes of feathers and sequins in every colour.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Notting Hill" on Wikipedia. If you know Notting Hill and we have it wrong, tell us.
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The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Jaipur In: Chainwit., CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Vrindavan In: Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0, source
- Dhaka Bd: Tanweer drmc, Public domain, source
- Tobermory Gb: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Portmeirion Gb: Llywelyn2000, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Bristol Gb: Chris Lathom-Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, source