Notting Hill: 25 years after the film, what is left of the district’s character?

Howard and James Malin, owners of the Notting Hill Bookshop, where Hugh Grant’s character sold books. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian

She was only a girl, standing in front of a boy asking him to love her, but would Anna Scott and William Thacker recognise the Notting Hill that exists today, 25 years on from their fictional meet-cute?

Parts of the west London district in which the film was set were down at heel and bohemian – a far cry from much of today’s Notting Hill, where it was revealed this week residents received more in capital gains from 2015 to 2019 than the combined populations of Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle.