280 Westbourne Park Road, W11

280 Westbourne Park Road is the scruffy flat William Thacker (Hugh Grant) shares with Spike (Rhys Ifans) in Notting Hill. The rundown bedsit interior was a studio set and bore no resemblance whatsoever to what lay behind the famous blue door, for this was actually home to the screenwriter Richard Curtis. Rather than the homely mess of a flat which confronted Anna Scott (Julia Roberts), the converted chapel boasted a courtyard garden, a 1,000 square-foot reception room and a galleried mezzanine. Shortly after filming it was put on the market for £1.3 million, which must make Notting Hill the most expensive house ad ever.

The blue door, since removed and auctioned off for charity, has now been replaced by a rather anonymous black one. Coffee Shop, which stood just across Portobello Road at 303 Westbourne Park Road, was the little, yes, coffee shop, where Hugh Grant gets the coffee and orange juice at the beginning of the film. Next door, on the corner of Westbourne Park and Portobello Road, was the empty property outside which Grant bumps into Roberts. It’s now – Coffee Republic. And Coffee Shop? It’s closed.

Trivia: the door immediately to the right of the Notting Hill flat, the corner flat at 227 Portobello Road, was home to the terminally depressed Jean Pierre Léaud in I Hired a Contract Killer, from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, the genius or fruitcake – according to taste – who gave us the bequiffed Leningrad Cowboys Go America and Hamlet running a rubber duck factory. Léaud’s flat overlooks what was the Warwick Castle pub, where he meets improbable flower seller Margi Clark. In line with the gentrification of the area, the bar has been given a smart makeover to become the Castle.

Notting Hill (1999, dir: Roger Michell)
I Hired A Contract Killer (1990, dir: Aki Kaurismaki)