London Guide
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is home to London's most popular market, Portobello Road, and its most famous annual street festival, the Notting Hill Carnival. It's also one of the city's most affluent neighbourhoods, characterized by leafy avenues, private garden squares, trendy shops and white stuccoed mansions. Back in the 1950s, however, it was a slum area and one of the main neighbourhoods settled by Afro-Caribbean immigrants. Tensions between the newly arrived black families and the white working-class "Teddy Boys" were exploited by far-right groups. And for four days in August 1958, Pembridge Road became the epicentre of the UK's first race riots.
The following year, the Notting Hill Carnival was begun as a response to the riots; in 1965 it took to the streets and has since grown into one of Europe's biggest street festivals. In the 1970s and early 1980s, tensions between the black community and the police came to a head at carnival time, but strenuous efforts on both sides have meant that such conflict has generally been avoided in the last two decades. However, there are still plenty of doubters among the area's wealthier and mostly white residents, most of whom switch on the alarm system and leave town for the weekend.