A Victorian park cottage that has sat empty on a prime Notting Hill street for more than a decade has been put up for sale for £1.75 million.
No. 238 Walmer Road sits within the Avondale Park Conservation Area and directly next to the entrance of the park itself – a genteel open space with tennis courts and a cafe first opened in 1892.
It is thought that the house, known as The Cottage, was built at the same time as a home for the groundskeeper.
Today the London stock brick façade gives little indication of what lies within, though a floorplan indicates reception rooms and three bedrooms arranged around a central staircase, with a small garden at the back of the plot.
Agent Maskells have elected not to include images of the interior and any buyer would need to undertake "substantial amounts of work", suggests associate director Angus Baker Baker.
Danish-born interior designer Julie Simonsen bought the house at auction in 2015 but her plans to turn it into a grand residence or guesthouse never came to fruition.
In 2017 she told the Standard of her vision for "a small hotel with the idea that everything that is on show, all the furniture, everything the guests can see, they can buy. It’s my way of linking in with the local shops in the area, so that we all benefit".
Today she recalls being drawn to the house because "it's a one-off – freestanding, with the park next door. I'd never seen anything quite like it".
"I was living in a home in Darnley Terrace that I'd completely renovated, but I thought this house was far more interesting. I sold that and was going to get on and do this one."
She drew up plans with an architect and won planning permission to go down into the basement, "but then Covid happened, my father died and I went back to Denmark. My situation changed.
"It's a shame to leave it empty and I think the people living around there are like, 'come on, get on and do it!' It's important to give it life and I hope whoever buys it will appreciate the history of the house.
"It's in a pretty bad state inside, but it's solid, the bricks are good. Someone could make it really special."
Though the boarded-up house has become a source of local intrigue – and occasional ire – it is hardly the most conspicuous landmark on Walmer Road.
Among a terrace of smart mid-century townhouses opposite the park is a great brick kiln, with a tapered chimney that rises above the rooftops of its relatively modern neighbours.
It is the single clue to the notorious slum that flourished here in the first half of the 19th century.
Known as the 'Potteries and the Piggeries', the area around nearby Pottery Lane suffered some of the worst housing conditions in London, with fresh water scarce and wider sanitation almost non-existent.
Brick-makers, turning a pocket of clay-rich soil into building materials for London's growing suburbs, butted up against pig-keepers who had been forced out of Tottenham Court Road by rapid urbanisation.
Charles Dickens described the area as "a plague spot scarcely equalled for its insalubrity by any other in London".
When the entrepreneur John Whyte unveiled his grand Hippodrome racecourse in 1937, he failed to account for its proximity to the impoverished masses and wandering residents ensured its closure within five years.
A defeated Whyte relinquished his lease to James Weller Ladbroke, who laid out the crescents of the Ladbroke Estates on the old track.
The Victorians got their act together in the late 19th century and a fresh wave of building works boosted the area's fortunes. The putrid mass of slurry that had filled a clay excavation site – dubbed "the Ocean" – was turned into Avondale Park.
W11's rags-to-riches tale has since seen it transformed into one of the capital's most coveted postcodes. Famous residents include the Beckhams, Jimmy Page and Robbie Williams.
Property prices averaged £2,660,800 over the last year.
