London’s Alleys: Junction Mews, W2

This charmingly cobbled residential mews is just around the corner from Paddington Station, but it was dominated by light industry and lock-up garages until a few decades ago.

The area was first laid out just 200 years ago, in the first few decades of the 1800s, with the north side of Junction Mews built before the southern half arrived in the 1830s.

C and J Greenwood map – 1828

Although the northern side is lined by decently modest houses, with the stables mews behind, the later built southern side is grander and known as Cambridge Terrace, with set back entrances behind a strip of private gardens.

Most of those grand houses are now hotels, and the private gardens now a car park for the hotels.

The mews, once home to stables and stablehands providing services for the grander houses on the other side, fell into some disrepair after WWII partly due to post-war austerity and, of course, the arrival of the motor car that removed the need for stables in the centre of London.

A photo of the entrance to the mews from 1974 is here. The mews was pretty derelict by then and mainly used for light industry or lock-up garages, and in 1978 two run-down homes were bought by a family and restored. There are some old photos here.

Since the 1980s, the mews has been slowly refurbished into the posh housing that it is today.

One of the previous residents is Mistral Wines, from 1979 until its acquisition by Berry Bros & Rudd in 2007. The former wine merchant was recently converted into a residential home.

Another former resident back in the early days was the Boatman’s Institute, a meeting place for the Grand Union Canal’s boatmen who frequented the Paddington Basin area during the Victorian era. That building, with its grand sign still intact, has since been restored as an architect-designed home.

Down at the far end, are two former stables joined at the first floor by a plant covered walkway, and behind that a block of flats that replaced the houses in the 1930s.

A couple of nice touches is that as the mews is just around the corner from Paddington station, there’s a replica Paddington clock on one of the houses. Another has a blue plaque with a modest description of the house’s resident.