Living in Bayswater: area guide to homes, schools and transport links

This Zone 1 spot’s time has come, with new flats behind classical façades, a £1bn retail overhaul and Crossrail on the way.
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Anthea Masey7 March 2018

The fine garden squares and terraces of Bayswater are at last being recognised as some of the best places in the capital to live. This is where wealthy buyers, often from overseas, find spacious flats, some spread over adjoining buildings.

More fashionable Notting Hill and Hyde Park for many years cast a long shadow over Bayswater, which suffered from an oversupply of shabby hotels and a tatty main shopping street along Queensway.

However, perceptions began to change in 2012, when upmarket developers Minerva and Northacre developed The Lancasters on a prime site overlooking Hyde Park.

For this game-changing residential scheme, the developers gutted 15 large stucco houses and built 77 luxury flats behind the 400ft-long classical façade. Today, a three-bedroom first-floor flat with nearly 2,700sq ft of space is on sale for £9.8 million, making it the most expensive flat in Bayswater.

Change is also afoot in Queensway with bold but still controversial plans to give the unloved street a £1 billion overhaul. Developer Meyer Bergman and the Warrior Group, the property company run by Warren Todd, who owns much of Portobello Road, have joined forces with architects Foster + Partners to redevelop the northern end of the street. Local Westminster City Council is chipping in with plans for wider pavements and more trees.

The famous listed Whiteleys department store building is to be developed behind its façade with flats and townhouses, a boutique hotel and a cinema. There will be a new shopping arcade and a public courtyard. The magnificent La Scala staircase which stretches over four storeys will form the centrepiece of the new hotel.

Local campaigners fought the development, claiming it would lead to a loss of light to nearby homes and the loss of public access to the famous staircase. Changes to the original Whiteley’s planning permission, granted in May last year, propose an increase in parking spaces and hotel bedrooms and fewer flats, and are currently before the council with a decision expected by the summer. If everything goes to plan the developer says building work will start early next year.

On the other side of the street opposite Whiteleys, the same developer has submitted plans for Queensway Parade, a new-build project of 94 flats and 12 shops which it hopes will be approved towards the end of this year.

Estate agent Paul Hyman from the local branch of Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward believes Bayswater has a bright future. He says the Whiteleys development and the imminent arrival of the Elizabeth line at Paddington, which will cut the journey time to Liverpool Street to 10 minutes and to Canary Wharf to 17 minutes, are attracting investors who can take a long-term view.

However, with a predominance of one- and two-bedroom flats, he says Bayswater also continues to attract homegrown first-time buyers who like the Zone 1 location and being close to Hyde Park with its vast acres of fabulous green space.

Properties on Chepstow Place
Daniel Lynch

The property scene

The name of the property game in Bayswater is flats, with eight times as many for sale as there are houses.

The district includes some fine stucco garden squares and terraces, with Cleveland Square being one of the most popular — a four-bedroom flat with its own swimming pool is on the market there for £5.95 million.

There are red-brick Victorian mansion flats around Moscow Road and Palace Gate. A five-bedroom flat in Prince Edward Mansions in Moscow Road with 3,700sq ft of space is for sale for £6.25 million.

Westbourne Park is one of the prettiest corners. Bordering Notting Hill, the houses are smaller and St Stephen’s Church and the Westbourne Park Road shops lend a village-like feeling.

The listed modernist Hallfield Estate, built in the Fifties, is the work of social housing master Berthold Lubetkin.

New build

Garden House in Kensington Gardens Square, a scheme by Residential Land, has involved developing 58 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments behind the façade of six large houses. The one-bedroom flats start at £995,000 and two-bedroom flats at £2 million. These homes are ready to move into.

Visit gardenhouselondon.com or call 020 7408 5155 for more.

The same developer is selling Bathurst Mews, a period conversion providing two garden flats that are on the market for £995,000 and £1,275,000 and a mews house priced £3.15 million. Contact phone number as before.

Leinster Square is the conversion of six buildings in Leinster Square into five triplexes and six flats by developer Alchemi Group. Prices range from £3.85 million for the remaining three-bedroom flat and £4.5 million for the triplexes.

Visit leinstersquarew2.com; through Savills on 020 7727 5750 and Hamptons on 020 3451 1544.

Affordable homes

The local council, Westminster, operates the Westminster Home Ownership Accelerator in conjunction with housing charity Dolphin Living. It is offering up to 50 households a deposit of between £21,800 and £54,500 to buy a home anywhere in Greater London after living for three years in one of Westminster’s intermediate rental homes.

In Maida Vale, under the scheme, the council is offering at intermediate rent, studio flats for £719 a month, one-bedroom flats for £901 a month, two-bedroom flats for £1,239 a month and three-bedroom flats from £1,408 a month. Call 020 3667 7876.

Who rents here?

Lettings manager Tom Foreman-Browne at Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward says short lets are popular in Bayswater with overseas visitors coming to London for two or three months, often to attend a language school.

“We also manage properties for investors who have a portfolio of homes. However, Bayswater is also popular with families who love the white stucco traditional architecture.”

Transport

Three miles from Trafalgar Square, Bayswater is served by five Tube stations. Lancaster Gate and Queensway are on the Central line and Bayswater is on the District and Circle lines. All are in Zone 1 and an annual travelcard costs £1,364. Royal Oak and Westbourne Park are on the Hammersmith & City and Circle lines in Zone 2 and an annual travelcard to Zone 1 also costs £1,364.

Commuter buses run along Westbourne Grove — the No 7 to Oxford Circus, the No 23 to Aldwych and the No 36 to Marble Arch and Victoria. The No 148 runs along Bayswater Road to Victoria and Westminster.

KFH estate agent Paul Hyman is convinced the positive effect on Bayswater of the Elizabeth line’s arrival in December this year has been underestimated.

Staying power

KFH estate agent Paul Hyman says Bayswater residents often trade up from a one-bedroom flat to a two-bedroom flat, but problems arise when they want to go on to buy a house locally, which is often a financial step too far. The cheapest three-bedroom house currently for sale is a mews house in need of renovation, priced at £2 million. “In these circumstances families are moving to Brook Green or Chiswick,” adds Hyman.

Postcode

Bayswater is in the W2 Paddington postcode, which as well as Paddington itself also covers Hyde Park, and strays into Little Venice and Notting Hill.

Best roads

The Lancasters and Cleveland Square.

Up and coming

Hallfield Estate is the most affordable place in Bayswater. One-bedroom flats currently start at £425,000, with two-bedroom flats at £569,950 and three-bedroom flats at £585,000.

Corringham is a listed modernist block of flats overlooking Craven Hill Gardens. A two-bedroom flat in the block is for sale for £835,000.

Council

Westminster City Council is Conservative controlled. Band D council tax for 2017/2018 is £688.14.

Lifestyle

Shops and restaurants

Queensway, especially the southern end, is dominated by tatty tourist shops. However, it is also home to Royal China, a favourite of Evening Standard restaurant critic Fay Maschler.

Moscow Road is home to St Sophia’s, the Greek Orthodox cathedral, and a little Greece has settled in the street with Athenian Grocery — a Greek deli — and Santorini, a restaurant that has had a recent stylish makeover. Kalamaras is a long-standing Greek restaurant in nearby Inverness Mews.

Back in Queensway, TwinMe is a shop where you can fashion a tiny mini-me using 3D printing. Whiteleys Shopping Centre is being run down ahead of redevelopment but there are still branches of Zara, H&M, Kurt Geiger, Gap and M&S Simply Food.

Round the corner in Bishops Bridge Road, Arro calls itself The Temple of Coffee. There is a large branch of Waitrose in Porchester Road, where you’ll also find the flagship branch of interiors brand Graham & Green.

Westbourne Grove is the other main Bayswater shopping street, which becomes increasingly chic as it enters Notting Hill. At the Bayswater end, Khan’s is a long-standing Indian restaurant; Planet Organic supermarket caters for those devoted to “clean eating” as does vegetarian and vegan restaurant Farmacy Kitchen. There are also chain restaurants Byron, Franco Manca, Côte Brasserie and Carluccio’s.

In Westbourne Park Road, Cépages is a wine bistro; The Cow is a pioneering gastropub; there are two designer jewellers Augustine Jewels and Brooke Gregson; and seagrass carpet specialist Crucial Trading.

The two top restaurants are The Ledbury and Hereford Road. The Ledbury has two Michelin stars and both restaurants take their names from the roads where they are located.

Open space

Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens are on the doorstep.

Leisure and the arts

There is an Odeon multiplex cinema in Whiteleys Shopping Centre. Porchester Centre in Queensway is the local council-owned swimming pool which is attached to Porchester Spa, one of London’s few Turkish baths.

Schools

Bayswater has a choice of state primary schools, two top private primary schools and a number of award-winning state comprehensive schools.

Primary schools

None of the state primary schools gets an “outstanding” Ofsted rating. The following are rated “good” by the education watchdog: Hallfield in Porchester Gardens; St James & St John CofE in Craven Terrace; Edward Wilson in Senior Street; Our Lady of Dolours RC in Cirencester Street; St Mary of the Angels RC in Shrewsbury Road; St Mary Magdalene CofE in Rowington Close, and Minerva Academy in Praed Street.

Comprehensive

All the nearby state comprehensive schools are rated “outstanding". They are: Westminster Academy (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Harrow Road; Paddington Academy (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Marylands Road, and Holland Park (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Airlie Gardens. Ark King Solomon (co-ed, ages three to 18) in Penfold Street in Lisson Grove is also rated “outstanding”.

Private

Pembridge Hall (girls, ages four to 11) in Pembridge Square and Wetherby (boys, ages three to eight) also in Pembridge Square are two fashionable private schools. Wetherby recently opened a senior school in Marylebone with a sixth form opening in the autumn, so the school now caters for boys from age three to 18.

Kensington Park School (co-ed, ages 11 to 16) is a private secondary school in Bark Place; the sixth form is in Queen’s Gate in South Kensington.