The gardens behind the crescents

In the late 1830s, the slope of Notting Hill was briefly a racecourse, the Hippodrome. It closed within a few years, and the land was laid out instead as the Ladbroke Estate, with crescents and streets of villas following the curve of the hill.

The planners did something unusual. Instead of giving each house a long private garden, they set the houses around shared gardens, enclosed on all sides by the backs of the terraces. Each house has its own small garden, and at the end of it, a gate.

There are more than a dozen of these communal gardens on the estate today. They are not public. They are run by committees of residents, paid for through an annual charge and opened with a key that belongs to the house rather than the owner. Some have lawns large enough for a game of football, some are planted with old plane trees and magnolias, and most are quiet in a way that the streets outside are not.

For families, the attraction is obvious: children can go out to play without crossing a road. For everyone else, it is the sense of a second, private landscape behind the stucco, used by neighbours who come to know one another over years.

When we sell a house on the estate, buyers often ask the same questions. Which garden does it open onto? What does the garden charge cover? Are there rules about dogs, bicycles or parties? The answers differ from garden to garden, and they are worth knowing before an offer is made.