Paddington North (UK Parliament Constituency) - Description

Description

In contrast to the southern division of Paddington, the area was almost entirely residential. When first drawn up in 1885, the development of Maida Vale had not yet been completed and parts remained agricultural fields.

Up to 1918 the constituency included Paddington railway station and the Paddington canal basin, together with St Mary's Hospital. The south-east of the constituency included some Edgware Road frontage which included the Metropolitan Theatre of Varieties music hall, a famous entertainment centre which was open for almost all of the time that the constituency was in existence. Between the Harrow Road and the canals of Little Venice was a densely packed area developed in the 1840s around the older St. Mary's Church and its churchyard. This area included Paddington Green and some homes and was the origin of the settlement of Paddington.

North of the canal and stretching up Maida Vale itself were situated large detached houses with gardens. At the start of the constituency's existence most were occupied by a single family, but as time went on the families took in lodgers and eventually split their homes into flats. Along Maida Vale, the 1930s saw the building of new mansion blocks, a type of housing that already predominated along Elgin Avenue and some of the other streets from the time they were first built (typically, the first decade of the twentieth century).

The constituency descended the social scale as one travelled to the west, with the houses becoming smaller and more cheaply built; Shirland Road was the approximate boundary of the two zones. Between the canal and the Harrow Road above Little Venice was an area around Westbourne Square (actually triangular) which quickly became slumland, although this was not typical of the area north of the canal. Much of this area was lost to Paddington South in 1918. Further up Harrow Road, the homes were typical of London terraces. One unusual feature was J. Welford's dairies, built on the corner of Shirland Road and Elgin Avenue in the 1880s and one of the most distinctive buildings of the area.

Following the boundary revisions of 1918, the constituency included the area of Queen's Park ward of Paddington Borough Council which had previously been a detached part of Chelsea. This area was developed from the 1870s explicitly as housing for the working class, by the Artizans, Labourers, and General Dwellings Company. They built modestly sized two storey homes which were rented out to the skilled working-class, many of whom were railway employees at Paddington station and its associated goods yard.