Notting Hill

Today I went on a walking tour of Notting Hill, which is a charming and eclectic mix of architecture, people and shops. From the swampy area that was used to farm pigs, and with rich clay soil and kilns for pottery, this area known as the Potteries and Piggeries has been cleaned up in the 1890's and is today one of the most affluent areas of London. It is well known for the 1958 race riots, the Notting Hill Carnival, Portobello Road Market as well as the high end properties and the famous people who live in them, like Robbie Williams and Claudia Schiffer.

One of the churches we visited in the area is the only church in London to conduct services in Tagalog, the language of the Filipinos - this is due to the large Filipino community living in the area who work as servants in the large homes in Notting Hill.

We saw the bookshop used in the film Notting Hill, and that blue door that Rhys Ifans famously stepped through wearing only his pants.

It is a heady mix of charming ice cream coloured stucco semi detached houses to large Georgian houses surrounded by gardens, with values up to £15 million.

This was a very interesting shop on Portobello Road that was drawing the tourists in to browse around.