Property Description
Portsea Mews is a cobbled cul-de-sac that is approached through an entrance under a building on Portsea Place, Westminster. In a courtyard configuration, the Mews is positioned behind larger properties on Portsea Place, Kendal Street, Porchester Place and Connaught Street, near to Archery Close, another original/ surviving Mews.
There are 12 properties in the Mews, most of which serve as Garages and other businesses.
A high explosive bomb is recorded falling in Kendal Street in World War II but Portsea Mews remained intact. The area was recorded as being comfortable with good earnings when the London Poverty Maps were published.
Portsea Mews is part of the Church Commissioners’ Hyde Park Estate, and Westminster City Council’s Bayswater Conservation Area. It is situated on the north side of Hyde Park.
The Church Commissioners Hyde Park Estate is considered to be one of the most important works of Georgian town planning in London due to its planned layout of squares, crescents and Mews.
16 Portsea Place has a Blue Plaque erected in 1959 inscribed ‘OLIVE SCHREINER 1855-1920 Author lived here’.
The cobbled Mews is made up of two-storey buildings with painted brickwork and roofs hidden behind parapet walls.
Everchanging Nature
Portsea Mews is a good example of an original/surviving Mews. The original Mews buildings were only of two stories and this height still prevails.
It has good retention of original Mews features including first floor hayloft doors ground. You will notice door timbers/Casement Windows and cobbles. There was little evidence of basements and very few planning applications have been submitted or permitted before or since 2003.
Conservation Area controls now apply to new development in the Mews.