Clarendon Cross
| Notting Hill | |
|---|---|
 Notting Hill |
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 Notting Hill
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| Notting Hill shown within Greater London | |
| OS grid reference | TQ245805 |
| • Charing Cross | 3.4 mi (5.5 km) ESE |
| Ceremonial county | Greater London |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LONDON |
| Postcode district | W11, W2 |
| Dialling code | 020 |
| Police | Metropolitan |
| Fire | London |
| Ambulance | London |
| EU Parliament | London |
| UK Parliament | |
Notting Hill is an affluent district in West London, located north of Kensington within the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea as well as Westminster. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road Market.
Very run-down until the 1980s, Notting Hill now has a contemporary reputation as an affluent and fashionable area known for attractive terraces of large Victorian townhouses and high-end shopping and restaurants (particularly around Westbourne Grove and Clarendon Cross). A Daily Telegraph article in 2004 used the phrase "the Notting Hill Set" to refer to a group of emerging Conservative politicians, such as David Cameron and George Osborne, who would become respectively Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer and were once based in Notting Hill.
For much of the 20th century, the large houses were subdivided into multi-occupancy rentals. Caribbean immigrants were drawn to the area in the 1950s, partly because of the cheap rents, but were exploited by slum landlords like Peter Rachman and who also became the target of white Teddy Boys in the 1958 Notting Hill race riots.
Since it was first developed in the 1820s, Notting Hill has had an association with artists and "alternative" culture.
The origin of the name "Notting Hill" is uncertain though an early version appears in the Patent Rolls of 1356 as Knottynghull, while an 1878 text, Old and New London, reports that the name derives from a manor in Kensington called "Knotting-Bernes,", "Knutting-Barnes," or "Nutting-barns", and goes on to quote from a court record during Henry VIII's reign that "the manor called Notingbarons, alias Kensington, in the parish of Paddington, was held of the Abbot of Westminster." For years, it was thought to be a link with Canute, but it is now thought likely that the "Nott" section of the name is derived from the Saxon personal name Cnotta, with the "ing" part generally accepted as coming from the Saxon for a group or settlement of people.
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Wikipedia