Sussex Gardens is located in
Paddington
Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Paddi ...
in
Central London
Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...
. It is a street that runs runs westwards from the
Edgeware Road
Edgware Road is a major road in London, England. The route originated as part of Roman Watling Street and, unusually in London, it runs for 10 miles in an almost perfectly straight line. Forming part of the modern A5 road, Edgware Road undergoes ...
, for most of the way as a broad
avenue
Avenue or Avenues may refer to:
Roads
* Avenue (landscape), traditionally a straight path or road with a line of trees, in the shifted sense a tree line itself, or some of boulevards (also without trees)
* Avenue Road, Bangalore
* Avenue Road, ...
until it reaches an area near
Lancaster Gate where it becomes a
garden square
A garden square is a type of communal garden in an urban area wholly or substantially surrounded by buildings; commonly, it continues to be applied to public and private parks formed after such a garden becomes accessible to the public at large. ...
. Part of the
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and London boroughs, borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of cent ...
, it is located in the residential area of
Tyburnia
Tyburnia, a part of Paddington in London, originally developed following an 1824 masterplan drawn up by Samuel Pepys Cockerell (1753-1827) to redevelop the historic lands of the Bishop of London, known as the Tyburn Estate, into a residential area ...
north of
Hyde Park
Hyde Park may refer to:
Places
England
* Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London
* Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds
* Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield
* Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester
Austra ...
. Streets running off it include
Westbourne Terrace
Westbourne Terrace is a street in the Paddington district of the City of Westminster in west London. The street runs between Westbourne Bridge in the north and the junction of Westbourne Crescent and Sussex Gardens in the south and was develo ...
,
London Street
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...
and Southwick Street. Sussex Gardens provides the main axis for the area.
The street was originally known as Grand Junction Street, named after the nearby
Grand Junction Waterworks. It was laid out as part of the ambitious street plan for Tyburnia in 1809, designed by the architect
Samuel Pepys Cockerell. Delays, partly caused by the
Panic of 1825
The Panic of 1825 was a stock market crash that started in the Bank of England, arising in part out of speculative investments in Latin America, including an imaginary country: Poyais. The crisis was felt most acutely in Britain, where it led to ...
, meant that the street wasn't fully completed until the early
Victorian Era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
to a revised plan by
George Gutch. The first houses were available for lease in 1826 at the Edgeware Road end. The space in between it and the
Uxbridge Road
Uxbridge Road is the name of the A4020 road in West London. The route starts at Shepherd's Bush Green and goes west towards Uxbridge. It passes through Acton, Ealing, Hanwell, Southall, Hayes, and Hillingdon.
Uxbridge Road is a major roa ...
to the south was half laid out by 1839. Before long the street and surrounding terrain was a fashionable residential centre.
St James's Church was constructed as the new
parish church
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...
of Paddington, the current building of today designed in 1881-82 largely replacing an earlier building established in the early 1840s. By the
twentieth century, the street had become known for the large number of
boarding houses and
hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...
s located on it.
Like the nearby
Sussex Square
Sussex Square is a garden square in Paddington in Central London. Located in the City of Westminster, it is part of the Tyburnia area north of Hyde Park. Stanhope Terrace runs along its southern side.
Tyburnia was developed in the first half ...
, Sussex Place and Sussex Mews, it derives its name from the title of the
Duke of Sussex, younger brother of
George IV
George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...
and
William IV.
[Rosena & Zuckermann p.42]
References
{{Reflist
Bibliography
* Cherry, Bridget & Pevsner, Nikolaus. ''London 3: North West''. Yale University Press, 2002.
* Cockburn, J. S., King, H. P. F. & McDonnell, K. G. T. & ''A History of the County of Middlesex''. Institute of Historical Research, 1989.
* Porter, Roy. ''London, a Social History''. Harvard University Press, 1998.
* Rosen, Barbara & Zuckermann, Wolfgang. ''The Mews of London: A Guide to the Hidden Byways of London's Past''. Webb & Bower, 1982.
* White, Jerry. ''London in the Nineteenth Century''. Random House, 2016.
Streets in the City of Westminster
Paddington
Tyburnia