Bayswater

Nearest tube stations:

• NOTE: In reference to the Bayswater river, refer to the River Westbourne for more information.
  

  Places of interest

• Whiteleys Shopping Centre
• Marble Arch
• Hyde Park

  Famous Bayswater residents (past & present)

• Winston Churchill
• J M Barrie
• Alexander Fleming
• Shore Sand
• William Holzworth
• Tony Blair (has bought a house in Connaught Square, to serve as a family home once his term as Prime Minister ends)

History

The land now called Bayswater belonged to the Abbey of Westminster when the Domesday Book was compiled; the most considerable tenant under the abbot was Bainiardus, probably the same Norman associate of the Conqueror who gave his name to Baynard's Castle. The descent of the land held by him cannot be clearly traced: but his name long remained attached to part of it; and, as late as the year 1653, a parliamentary grant of the Abbey or Chapter lands describes "the common field at Paddington" as being "near a place commonly called Baynard's Watering." In 1720, the lands of the Dean and Chapter are described to be the occupation of Alexander Bond, of Bear's Watering, in the same parish of Paddington. It may therefore fairly be concluded that this portion of ground, always remarkable for its springs of excellent water, once supplied water to Baynard, his household, or his cattle; that the memory of his name was preserved in the neighbourhood for six centuries; and that his watering-place now takes the abbreviated name Bayswater.

References in fiction

• In John le Carré's The Spy who Came in from the Cold, Liz is a member of the Bayswater South Branch of the Communist Party.
• In Smiley's People, the retired Russian major lives in a dingy flat on Westbourne Grove.