The Frontline: Shebeens, Restaurants & Clubs | Notting Hill Carnival 60

The hidden Caribbean history behind Notting Hill’s pastel houses. Shebeens, resistance and the Mangrove Nine. A walking tour like no other.

Behind the pastel houses and the Hugh Grant film, there is a Notting Hill that most people never hear about.

This walk takes you through the streets where Caribbean families built an entire community from scratch – because nobody else would let them in. We visit the sites of clubs, cafés, pubs, restaurants and shebeens that no longer exist, but whose stories shaped this neighbourhood.

You will hear about illegal gambling dens in basement rooms, the only pub in the neighbourhood that would serve a Black customer, a restaurant whose story changed British civil rights history, a James Bond actor with a secret second life, and a political scandal that connected these streets to the fall of a government.

We start outside Notting Hill Community Church, Kensington Park Road, and end at The Tabernacle on Powis Square. 75 minutes. The Notting Hill they do not tell you about.