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Maida Vale
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Maida Vale is a residential district in West London between St John's Wood and Kilburn. It is part of City of Westminster. The area is mostly residential, and mainly affluent, consisting of many large Edwardian blocks of mansion flats. It is also home to the BBC Maida Vale Studios.
In Maida Hill in the south, the Paddington Basin, a junction of three canals with many houseboats, is known as Little Venice. It starts off the Edgware Road (or A5) from Kilburn, near Kilburn High Road station running south-east, past Maida Vale tube station, through the district known as Maida Vale.
Just to the east of Maida Vale is St John's Wood and Lord's Cricket Ground.
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Encyclopedia
Maida Vale is a residential district in West London between St John's Wood and Kilburn. It is part of City of Westminster. The area is mostly residential, and mainly affluent, consisting of many large Edwardian blocks of mansion flats. It is also home to the BBC Maida Vale Studios.
In Maida Hill in the south, the Paddington Basin, a junction of three canals with many houseboats, is known as Little Venice. It starts off the Edgware Road (or A5) from Kilburn, near Kilburn High Road station running south-east, past Maida Vale tube station, through the district known as Maida Vale.
Just to the east of Maida Vale is St John's Wood and Lord's Cricket Ground. Where it meets St. John's Wood Road, Maida Vale reverts to the name Edgware Road.
Developed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the early 1800s as middle class housing it took its name from a public house named after John Stuart, Count of Maida, which opened on the Edgware Road soon after the Battle of Maida, 1806.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Maida Vale was a predominantly Jewish district, and the area contains the 1896 Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue (a Grade II listed building) and headquarters of the British Sephardi community. The first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, lived within sight of this synagogue on Warrington Crescent. The pioneer of modern computing, Alan Turing, was born a few hundred yards further down this same road.
Maida Vale tube station was opened on June 6, 1915, on the Bakerloo Line.
BBC Studios
Maida Vale is home to some of BBC network radio's recording and broadcast studios. The building is in fact one of the BBC's earliest premises, pre-dating Broadcasting House, and was the centre of the BBC radio news service during the second world war.
The building on Delaware Road houses a total of seven music and radio drama studios, and most famously were home to John Peel's BBC Radio 1 Peel Sessions, and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Little Venice
Maida Avenue, Warwick Crescent and Blomfield Road, the streets in the south of Maida Vale overlooking Browning's Pool, are known as Little Venice. The name is believed to have been coined by the English poet Robert Browning. who lived here from 1862 to 1887. Browning's Pool is named after the poet, and is the junction of Regent's Canal and the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal.
South Maida Vale is one of London's prime residential areas, and it is also known for its shops and restaurants, as well as the Canal Cafe Theatre, the Puppet Theatre Barge, the Cascade Floating Art Gallery, the Waterside Café and the Warwick Castle pub. It is possible to take canal tours from Little Venice eastwards around Regent's Park, past London Zoo and on towards Camden Town.
Central Maida Vale
Central Maida Vale is characterised by its wide tree-lined avenues, large communal gardens and red-brick mansion blocks from the late-Victorian and Edwardian eras. The first mansion blocks were completed in 1897, with the arrival of the identically-designed Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Mansions West and Lauderdale Mansions East in Lauderdale Road. Others quickly followed in neighbouring streets: Elgin Mansions (Elgin Avenue) and Leith Mansions (Grantully Road) in 1900, Ashworth Mansions (Elgin Avenue and Grantully Road) and Castellain Mansions (Castellain Road) in 1902, Elgin Court (Elgin Avenue) and Carlton Mansions (Randolph Avenue) in 1902, and Delaware Mansions (Delaware Road) and Biddulph Mansions (Elgin Avenue and Biddulph Road) in 1907.
Notable people
Blue Plaques in Maida Vale
- Edward Ardizzone (1900 – 1979), artist, has an English Heritage blue plaque in his honour at 130 Elgin Avenue. This is where he lived and worked from 1920 to 1972.
- Alan Turing (1912-1954), code breaker and pioneer of computer science was born at 2 Warrington Crescent.
- William Friese-Greene (1855-1921), pioneer of cinematography, developed a camera that took a sequence of pictures on a roll of perforated film moving behind a shutter, lived at 136 Maida Vale from 1888-1891. He later shot the world’s first movie film at his Maida Vale home.
- Ambrose Fleming, (1849-1945), English electrical engineer and physicist, and inventor of the wireless valve, at 9 Clifton Gardens.
- David Ben-Gurion, (1886-1973), the first Prime Minister of Israel, at 75 Warrington Crescent.
- Andreas Kalvos, (1792-1869), Greek writer, at 182 Sutherland Avenue.
Other notable residents
- John Masefield (1878-1967), novelist, playwright and Poet Laureate from 1930 to his death, wrote his famous poem The Everlasting Mercy while living at 30 Maida Avenue.
- Sir Alec Guinness (1914-2000), Oscar-winning actor was born at 155 Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Road. His most well-known feature film roles included Fagin in Oliver Twist, Sidney Stratton in The Man in the White Suit, Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai, George Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
- John Inman (1935-2007) lived in a mews house in Little Venice for 30 years
- Stephen Potter (1900-1969), humorist and author of the cult book ‘The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship; or the Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating’, lived at 23 Maida Vale in the 1960s.
- Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) co-author of ‘Noblesse Oblige: an enquiry into the identifiable characteristics of the English aristocracy’ which coined the terms ‘U’ and ‘non-U’, lived at 13 Blomfield Road in the 1930s.
- Actress Joan Collins grew up in Maida Vale.
- Mark Turner (Players Please/Kic Pimpz) recorded several early works at Club 131, Randloph Avenue.
- Robert Smith (1986 - Present) front of alternative rock band The Cure
Notable local events
St George's Roman Catholic Secondary School, situated in Maida Vale, was the school of which Philip Lawrence was head teacher at the time of his murder in December 1995. A year later, 16-year-old local gangster Learco Chindamo was found guilty of Mr Lawrence's murder and sentenced to indefinite detention. In 2008, it was alleged that Chindamo had been released from his West Sussex prison and given a secret identity and residence; but this has been officially denied. However, it is clear that because he is half-Italian (as well as half-Filipino) he cannot be deported; legal proceedings have been determined in his favour.
Education
External links
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