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For those of you who are super-keen to know absolutely everything about the area, here’s a little bit of Notting Hill trivia that might just make your day!

THAT Blue Door

Westbourne Park Road, near corner with Portobello Road
Shown countless times in the film, it is in fact the front door of the house that was owned by writer/producer/director Richard Curtis (he wrote and produced Notting Hill and his wife Emma Freud. He has long since moved from there – some joke that he made the film to increase popularity in the area Notting Hill, thereby raising property prices…including the value of his own house! Weirdly, the original blue door that was seen in the movie has also departed us a long time ago, replaced with a much more ordinary looking black one (to detract from visitors seeking out the door). However, it has now been replaced with a blue door more like the one in the film.

Coffee Republic/Run-down store

Corner of Portobello Road and Westbourne Park Road
With this, I am not implying that the Coffee Republic cafe is in fact the same thing as a run-down store. What I do mean is that the run down store in front of which Hugh Grant spills orange juice all over Julia Roberts in the film is now, in fact, a Coffee Republic.

Coronet Cinema

Notting Hill Gate
Featured in Notting Hill when Julia Roberts’ and Hugh Grant’s characters go to see a film, and Grant’s character wears comedy goggles. Oh the hilarity.

The Coronet Cinema in fact opened as a theatre as far back as 1898, and became a full-time cinema in 1923 (although it did start to show films in 1916).

Other Films filmed in Notting Hill

Notting Hill is not the only film to feature this area. Other films that have done so include A Hard Day’s Night, Withnail and I, The Italian Job and Quadrophenia, amongst others.

192

192 Kensington Park Road
This was the often mentioned bar/restaurant in the Bridget Jones’s Diary books, where she met up with her chums to talk about her love life and other things. (Well, just her love life, usually.) In real life, 192 was the popular haunt of media types and many, MANY a celeb – not just the British ones, but proper Hollywood megastars too when they were in town!

Famous Residents

Some of the oft-mentioned celebrities that live (or recently lived) in Notting Hill are Blur frontman Damon Albarn, designers Bella Freud and Stella McCartney, ex-Eastender Martine McCutcheon, singer Bjork (sometimes), Robbie Williams, supermodel Claudia Schiffer as well as others. And if you want to know those who hang out in the area…well, the list is endless. It would probably be easier to list those that don’t hang out here.

All Saint’s Road

The recording studios in this road apparently gave the group All Saints their name. Who are they, you might ask? Yeah, we don’t really remember them either. But by mentioning this band that had their heyday in the late 1990s here, that’s proof that this website has been around since then!

2 Comments

  • brian
    Posted April 28, 2015 at 11:59 am

    in your films section, you could add ‘The blue lamp’, it was an old police film filmed around the ladbrke grove and wornington road area in 1950, its well known amongst locals.

    also, there were alot of tv shows filmed around the area.
    the bill, minder and the sweeney to name just a few.

    i was born and bred in notting hill (telford road, wornington green estate)
    if you need any old stories of the area, just email and let me know and ill be happy to help out.

    well done, its a great site.

    • maria
      Posted February 16, 2018 at 7:17 pm

      Thank you for the film suggestion, I’ll be sure to see to it.

      I’m not from the website, but would love to know about any stories about our neighbourhood!

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