Home » Rent » Area Guides » Bayswater

Bayswater - "Dancing on ice"

A built-up district in west London (population density of 17,500 people per square kilometer) located in the City of Westminster, it has today become one of London’s most cosmopolitan areas, with one of London’s highest concentration of hotels. Bayswater has a significant Arab population towards Edgware Road, together with a large number of Americans and a substantial Greek community attracted by London’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The area also supports a large Brazilian community.
Grand Georgian stucco terraces, once with single occupancies and now divided into studio flats, together with purpose built apartment blocks dating from the inter-war period make up most of the area. Post War developments include local authority housing estates (with a high percentage of owner occupiers) and more recently modern glass & steel apartment blocks.

The district now known as ‘Bayswater’ once belonged to the St Peters (Westminster Abbey).
‘Bayswater’ is believed to have derived from ‘Bayard’s Watering Place’, first recorded in 1380, is where the River Westbourne passed under the Uxbridge road, and probably used to refresh horses. A parliamentary grant of the Abbey lands in 1653 describing it as a ‘common field at Paddington being near a place commonly called Baynard’s Watering’.
From the 17th to 19th centuries there were gravel pits on the settlements of both sides of the Uxbridge road, that provided bricks to build the surrounding areas.