Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL
High Street Kensington to Notting Hill
Despite the smattering of aristocratic mansions and the presence of royalty
in Kensington Palace, the village of Kensington remained surrounded by
fields until well into the nineteenth century. The village has disappeared
entirely now in the busy shopping district around Kensington High Street,
and the chief attractions are the wooded Holland Park and the former artists'
colony clustered around the exotically decorated Leighton House. Bayswater
and Notting Hill, to the north, were for many years the bad boys of the
borough, dens of vice and crime comparable to Soho. Gentrification has
changed them beyond all recognition, though they remain more
cosmopolitan districts, with a strong Arab presence and vestiges of the
African-Caribbean community who initiated and still run the Notting Hill
Carnival, one of Europe's largest street festivals.
