Last week we left off at Ladbroke Grove station. This is the dark looking entrance on the north side of the bridge in the shadow of the Westway.
Note the tiny branch of the record shop Dub Vendor right next to the entrance.
This is the W10 section of Ladbroke Grove. The tall houses of the southern end of the street have been left behind. The 19th century housing at this end of the road was built to accommodate local workers and commuters after the district line came to the area.The major part of the growth of the area took place in the 1870s.
Nevertheless this was still an area of desirable housing and in the period I worked around here it was ripe for the process of gentrification. There are a few shops but Ladbroke Grove was and still is a road of houses, although the Victorian town houses in this part of the road had mostly been converted into flats.
Below, the bus stop by Chesterton road.
Opposite that, the Earl Percy, no longer a pub but a hotel /bistro called the Portobello House.
The buildings here were solid but a little run down, awaiting that wave of improvement.
I don’t have as many anecdotes for the w10 section of Ladbroke Grove. But my wife and I did have an encounter with the angriest taxi driver in the world after spending the evening with some friends who had a flat along the eastern side of the road. It was late at night and we’d had a couple of drinks. The driver was one of those who abhored stopping at traffic lights so was forever turning into side streets, flinging us from side to side, causing a fit of giggling which just seemed to make him drive faster. A tour of obscure streets between Ladbroke Grove and Beaufort Street ensued which served to improve my growing knowledge of the Borough.
This picture puzzled me for a while and I briefly wondered whether it had been mis-labelled as 240 Ladbroke Grove.
I showed it to a local expert, we zoomed in on the door and she identified the Raymede Clinic, a welfare centre for mothers and children which stood where the new fire brigade station is now located on the corner of Telford Road. (Not the only street in the vicinity named after a scientist/engineer.)
It feels like a long road at this point. On the western side there is some postwar housing in front of the gothic tower of St Charles’ Hospital but the photo survey doesn’t have many pictures of that side from this period
Moving north we cross a railway line. North of that was one of the big industrial structures in the area, the Gas Works. For more on that see this post. The Works originally stood in isolation but was surrounded by the northward development of housing. In 1936 the Gas Company itself moved into housing with the construction of Kensal House
We won’t linger here. I’m going to give Kensal House a post to itself shortly.
The final northernmost section of Ladbroke Grove has seen the most changes, The area looks completely different now from pictures in the 1970s and 1980s. The most dramatic change was the building of the large branch of Sainsburys on the gas works site. But other features have changed too as you can see in these planning photos from the 1980/90s.
A row of shops and houses on the eastern side of the road.
A closer look shows a then well known establishment.
Hamrax Motors (their motto, as I recall it on the side of their van: “You bend’em, we mend’em”), a crowded room where owners of Japanese motorcycles could go to be patronised by scornful middle aged men who preferred Triumphs and other British bikes.. There was a workshop below it accessible around the back where I took one of my bikes was repaired after my most damaging accident.
On the other side of the road the gas works site, cleared in this picture.
The building just visible on the right is Canalside House, almost the sole survivor.
Below the edge of Kensal Green cemetery, the Dissenter’s Chapel over the wall.
Behind that gate is a path to the canal.
The path is just about visible here in this photograph of 1961 from a private collection.
Note the water tower which has also survived and been convertrd for residential use. On the left a building I was particularly glad to see – a pub called the Narrow Boat which was a stopping off point for people like me heading north towards the pub desert of Kensal Rise.
There was another pub right at the end of Ladbroke Grove seen here, the Plough. Another one I never entered, now gone. These pictures come from the 80s or 90s.
The narrow entrance onto the Harrow Road by the Plough. This takes us out of the Borough. But I’ve one more motoring story for you. On that bike ride I began with in the last post I would cross the Harrow Road and head up Kilburn Lane/ Chamberlayne Road to Kensal Rise. On one weekday afternoon, ascending the hill of one of the bridges over the railway I was caught in slow moving traffic. A yappy dog who must have had a particular dislike of motorcycles launched himself at me and sank his teeth into my leg piercing the boot on one side (quite a nice pair of boots from Lewis Leathers of Great Portland Street). Imagine me attempting to accelerate away while trying to shake the dog off my leg. When I got home it was decided I needed a tetanus shot so I was off again back down Ladbroke Grove to St Charles’s Hospital. So a set of photographic shots ends with another kind of shot.
(One final picture. One the right you can see the roof of the stone mason’s showroom, the only structure left from this 1981 picture.)
Postscript
Thanks to Maggie for clearing a few matters up, and Barbara for unearthing some of the pictures. Also to Mr Peter Dixon for the canal photograph.
Wide awake, the cold cold light of day
Realize my taste
My taste just slips away
I say my taste just slips away
Song by Bob Stanley, Peter Stewart Wiggs and Sarah Jane Cracknell.
November 26th, 2015 at 9:25 pm
Bring backs memories of when I was a boy.Born in Kensal Road now in Cornwall,it was so run down then.
January 17th, 2016 at 10:28 pm
I was born in the Plough pub in 1963
March 17th, 2016 at 8:24 pm
I remember the motorbike shop so well. Love these photos. Makes me reminisce so much. I know a lot of people won’t agree but i preferred the area when the old pubs were still standing.
September 1st, 2016 at 7:43 am
I couldn’t agree with you more, growing up on Ladbroke Grove during the 60s and 70s I love the place the way it was. Like most people I could never afford to live there now.
March 23rd, 2016 at 11:19 pm
Thanks for posting the pic of the Plough. My aunt and uncle ran that pub in the mid to late 1970s.
September 9th, 2016 at 11:31 pm
Dave, I’ve already commented on another blog where ‘Happy’ Hamrax was mentioned, but your description in this blog is spot on!
September 14th, 2016 at 11:13 pm
Jesus I used to go to school not far it brings back memories.i always had a sense of fear around the northern part of the grove but now it’s far too clean.
September 22nd, 2016 at 11:17 am
I bought my first motorbike at Hamrax and my wife made me take it back after she’d watched me sail through the lights at Elgin Crescent. The Scaramanga sisters had their cottage on the bank of the canal not far from the gasworks in MOTHER LONDON (1988).
September 3rd, 2017 at 1:52 pm
The last two photo’s of Ladbroke Grove adjoining Harrow Road by “The Big” Plough as it was known as across the road in Kensal Road about 75/100 yards away there was another pub also called The Plough, it was a tiny little pub so was known as “The Little” Plough. The very last photo had the little newsagent shop owned by a funny little man named Ernie. He was a shroud business man, he had heard that the Council were thinking about widening the turning from Harrow Road to Ladbroke Grove, he held out for years turning down offer after offer, but the Council had to buy it otherwise all there plans were scuppered. Ernie left there a very rich man.
On the picture directly before that you see a lady battling the weather carrying 2 shopping bags THAT IS OUR MUM. She had a cafe 50 yards up called Betty’s Cafe which was always packed. It was a really friendly place where everyone seemed to know everyone’s name. It was next to my Dads garage called P & H Auto’s my dads name was Harry. After the cafe closed down, my mum and dad turned it into one of the first video film rentals. Does anyone remember any of this. I hope so 😊😊
September 4th, 2017 at 1:00 pm
Cathy
Thank you! I love it when people find friends or relatives in one of our pictures. great to hear from you.
Dave
February 18th, 2018 at 3:23 am
I used to go to Fred’s Café which was in the movie The L SHaped Room. Great big mugs of steaming hot tea, egg and chips-best in London. I was staying at a place called Pembroke House Hotel (across a foot bridge over the railway bridge that went into Westbourne Park tube etc). I think it was knicknamed Kinky Hall although there was nothing kinky about it-a cheap lodging house for office workers and aspiring theatricals owned by Keith and Anne Trevor. Ealry to mid 60s. Opposite Fred’s was a pub and a newsagents. I wonder if anyone remembers these places where I first stayed in London.
February 18th, 2018 at 3:31 am
I realize Pembroke House Hotel (sadly demolished I believe was in Westbourne Park and I would love to find pictures of it as well as Freds Café and the pub and newsagents opposite Fred’s which took you down a little lane onto the footbridge across the railway to Pembroke House Hotel. Sadly I forget the names of specific streets-technically Fred’s may have been in Ladbroke Grove. Can anyone please help? Very sentimental and nostalgic memories of my days as a ten and 20, thanks
November 6th, 2018 at 4:41 pm
Very interesting to me ,I knew this area very well in the 60 s one of my family’s friends had the ice cream shop in Ladbroke Grove just by Barlby. road . I just found out recently that the Admiral Blake pub (the cowshed) on the corner of Barlby Road has been demolished .
November 8th, 2018 at 12:59 am
Are you related to the Bill that had a furniture store further up Harrow Road?