Walking the Circle Line: High Street Kensington to Paddington
I am walking above London’s Circle Line step by step, stop by stop. Those who aren’t entirely engrossed by the series will be happy to learn I am now on the homeward stretch! The previous 7 entries (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th) have taken me the 17 stops from Barbican to High Street Kensington. This entry takes me to Paddington. I am shooting with a primitive 4x5 pinhole camera - it has no lens, shutter speed dial or aperture settings. It is a wooden box with a tiny hole in it and little else.
I start the walk from High Street Kensington to Notting Hill.
One of the curiosities of London is the preponderance of bricked up windows. During the 1700s a tax imposed on households was calculated by the number of windows the property had. If you had a dozen windows, you were in for a hefty bill. Homeowners responded by simply bricking up the windows. I am yet to be convinced, but legend has it that this is one of the origins of the term “daylight robbery”. The tax was replaced by “council tax”, a plague that continues to the modern day. Rent an apartment in London today and you can expect to pay $1000-$3000 council tax per year, even if you don’t have a window.
I race pass Notting Hill station to Bayswater.
Constructed soon after window tax was abolished, most of the Circle Line made via the “cut and cover” method. It is only a few dozen feet below ground level. The stations themselves are often left open to the elements, some have buildings above them, and several are covered by semicircular roofs. Some enterprising people from EuropCar Car Rental have turned the top of Bayswater station into a car rental area.
You would not guess it from the shot above, but this represents one of the strangest sections of the Circle Line. Half of the home above is a fake facade merely inches thick. When the underground was built, many existing homes had to be demolished to make way for it. Not so great if you live in one of the poshest streets in west London. So 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens were replaced by a facade that gives the illusion of a continuous row of Georgian Houses. In a bizarre reflection of the window tax we get 14 windows that have nothing behind them. Below, the rear view. (There is more trivia if you are after it).
The last half dozen stops on my walk have been primarily residential areas and so the photos have become more seldom as I go along. There are only so many shots of buildings one can take. An exception are the thousands of “mews” around London of which I will never tire. For every stately mansion in London there is a rather drab back entrance, and usually another mansion also backing on to it. Once these were stables, but now these cobbled streets are some of the quietest and most desirable addresses in the city.
Finally, I arrive at Paddington station where trains have run for more than 150 years, before photography was invented.
