Royal Crescent, London
The Royal Crescent is a Grade II* listed street in Holland Park, west London, England, consisting of two curved facing terraces in a crescent shape. The crescent is located on the north side of Holland Park Avenue, west of Addison Avenue, and to the east of the Holland Park Roundabout.
Between the facing terraces is a landscaped communal garden with expansive lawns and numerous trees. The houses themselves are stucco fronted and are built on four floors, with porticoed entrances, above which are small first-floor balconies with iron railings. Each of the end houses have circular corners.
History
Designed in 1839, The Royal Crescent is one of the most architecturally interesting Nineteenth Century developments in Holland Park. Evidently inspired by its older namesake in Bath, it differs from the Bath crescent in that it is not strictly a true crescent but rather two quadrant terraces each terminated by a circular bow in the Regency style, rising as a tower, a feature which would not have been found in the earlier classically inspired architecture of the 18th century which the design of the crescent seeks to emulate. The plan of the Royal Crescent was the design of the planner Robert Cantwell, and it was the need for the newly fashionable underground sewers which caused the crescent to be designed in two halves rather than any consideration for architectural aesthetics. On early maps it is marked as Norland Crescent.
