Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
boiler tower, yet despite its uncompromising concrete brutalist appearance, it remains
popular with its residents. Golborne Road itself is known for its Portuguese and
Moroccan cafés, giving the road some of the bohemian feel of old Notting Hill, and
making it the perfect place to wind up a visit to the market.
Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising
2 Colville Mews • Tues-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 11am-5pm • £6.50 •
T
020 7908 0880,
W
museumofbrands.com •
!
Notting Hill Gate
Despite its rather unwieldy title, it's definitely worth popping into the
Museum of
Brands, Packaging and Advertising
, hidden away off Lonsdale Road, one block east
of Portobello Road. The museum houses an awesome array of old British shop
displays through the decades, based on the private collection of Robert Opie, a Scot
whose compulsive collecting disorder has left him with ten thousand yoghurt pots
alone. From Victorian ceramic pots of anchovy paste to the alcopops of the 1990s,
the displays provide a fascinating social commentary on the times. Look out for the
militarization of marketing during the two world wars, with their bile beans “for
radiant health and a lovely figure” and V for Victory mugs, and clock the irony of
the glamorous early cigarette adverts or the posters for Blackpool “for happy,
healthy holidays”.
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Kensal Green Cemetery
April-Sept Mon-Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 10am-6pm; Oct-March closes 5pm • Free • Guided tours March-Oct Sun 2pm; Nov-Feb first & third
Sun 2pm • £7 donation suggested •
T
020 8969 0152,
W
kensalgreen.co.uk •
!
Kensal Green
Beside the gasworks, the Great Western Railway and the Grand Union Canal, lies
Kensal Green Cemetery
, the first of the city's commercial graveyards, opened in 1833 to
relieve the pressure on overcrowded inner-city churchyards. Highgate may be the most
famous of the “Magnificent Seven” Victorian cemeteries, but Kensal Green has by far
the best funerary monuments. It's still owned by the founding company and remains
a functioning cemetery, with services conducted daily in the central Greek Revival
Anglican chapel. The excellent
guided tours
of the cemetery also include a visit to the
catacombs
(bring a torch).
The graves of the more famous incumbents - Thackeray, Trollope and the Brunels -
are less interesting architecturally than those arranged on either side of the Centre
Avenue, which leads from the easternmost entrance on Harrow Road. Vandals have
left numerous headless angels and irreparably damaged the beautiful Cooke family
monument, but still worth looking out for are Major-General Casement's bier, held
up by four grim-looking turbaned Indians, circus manager Andrew Ducrow's
conglomeration of beehive, sphinx and angels, and artist William Mulready's
neo-Renaissance extravaganza. Other interesting characters buried here include
Walter Clopton Wingfield, who invented lawn tennis; Marcus Garvey, the black
nationalist (until exhumed and taken to Jamaica in 1964); Charles Blondin, the
famous tightrope walker; Carl Wilhelm Siemens, the German scientist who brought
electric lighting to London; and “James” Barry, Inspector-General of the Army Medical
Department, who, it was discovered during the embalming of the corpse, was in fact a
woman. Playwright Harold Pinter was buried here and Queen singer Freddie Mercury
was cremated here, but his ashes were scattered in Mumbai. Mary Seacole, the “black
Florence Nightingale”, is buried in the adjacent Roman Catholic cemetery.
