Notting Hill by Car: Narrow Streets and Market Mornings

The main roads and everything behind them

Notting Hill hangs off three main roads: Notting Hill Gate running east to west, Ladbroke Grove running north to south, and Westbourne Grove cutting across the middle. Those three carry the traffic. Everything behind them is residential, narrow and tightly parked, and much of it sits on a slope. The crescents of the Ladbroke Estate, with their communal gardens, are particularly deceptive because the elegant curve on a map translates into a single running lane on the ground.

Market days and their radius

Portobello Road runs a market through the week, with Saturday by far the largest. On Saturdays the street is effectively closed to vehicles across long stretches, pedestrian volume spills into the surrounding roads, and the effect reaches several streets in every direction. Golborne Road at the northern end runs its own market with a different but overlapping rhythm.

The workable arrangement on a Saturday is to set down on a road that the market does not touch and walk in. Kensington Park Road, Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park Road all sit close enough that the walk is short, and all three keep moving when Portobello itself does not.

• Saturday is the heaviest market day, with pressure from mid-morning onwards
• Golborne Road adds a second focus at the northern end of Portobello
• Sunday mornings are comparatively quiet across the whole district

Crescents, communal gardens and gated backs

Elgin Crescent, Lansdowne Road, Stanley Crescent, Blenheim Crescent and their neighbours back onto large private communal gardens. The gardens are for keyholders and there is no vehicle access through them, so an address that appears to have a garden entrance is still reached from the street at the front. Parking on these streets is permit-controlled and full for most of the day, which makes a brief set-down at the door the realistic option.

Westbourne Grove and the shopping streets

Westbourne Grove west of Chepstow Road carries a run of independent shops and restaurants, and the kerb there turns over constantly through the day. Ledbury Road and All Saints Road connect north from it and are narrow enough that a parked delivery van blocks the street entirely. For an evening restaurant arrival, agreeing a set-down on Westbourne Grove itself and walking round the corner is usually faster than trying to reach the door.

The gradient and the vehicle

The district rises noticeably from the Westway up to Notting Hill Gate, and several of the connecting streets are both steep and narrow, with parked cars on both sides. This is not a problem for a saloon but is worth mentioning for a larger vehicle, particularly where a turn at the top of a hill has to be made in one movement. If your address sits on one of the steeper crescents, saying so lets the approach be chosen sensibly.

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