A street in London looks like any other typical, quintessentially British street made up of rows of characterful Victorian terraces but there’s an unexpected surprise waiting behind two of the properties. Leinster Gardens, in the Bayswater area of Westminster, appears to be a regular, run-of-the-mill residential neighbourhood but two houses on the street are false facades.
Numbers 23 and 24 look as though they have standard sash windows but in fact, they don’t - they’re blocked up. The pretty frontages were built to tie in with the rest of the houses while concealing a ventilation shaft for the London Underground.
The faux houses were built in the 1860s while the Underground was being constructed, in a bid to address concerns regarding ventilation. They were designed with meticulous attention to detail, allowing them to seamlessly blend in with the neighbouring properties.
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It’s only when heading around the back of the houses that the full scale of the facades becomes apparent.
Maskells Estate Agents explains: “The houses at 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens were demolished to build a tunnel connecting Paddington station with Bayswater. The Underground uses this open-topped portion of the line to ventilate a large section of the surrounding Tube system, but the sacrificed homes were never reconstructed.
“This left a rather unsightly hole in an otherwise very sightly block of Empire 5-Story houses. And so, a false façade was constructed to conceal the wound. It matches its neighbours in every important detail, except that the windows are painted on, rather than being made of glass."
Recently, a detailed video showing both the beautiful frontage of the fake homes’ five-feet thick walls and what they look like from the back was shared on Facebook.
In the caption, the creator penned: “There is something not quite right about this West London street...
“23-24 Leinster Gardens have [no] letterboxes and the windows are all blocked up. To find out why you have to go around the back onto Porchester Terrace.
“You will see that they are, in fact, just facades and hiding a section of underground railway!”
In the comments section, people were keen to share their thoughts.
One person made a nod to Harry Potter character Sirius Black’s London home, which is famously concealed from humans - known in the magical world as “muggles”.
They said: “Silly muggles, it’s Grimmauld Place."
Someone else said: “Interesting to know... then best to avoid buying #22 & #25, for you'd be literally living besides the train tracks, and train noise.”
A third person said: “First learned about these house facades in Sherlock. V interesting.”
Another person said: “So interesting I would never [have] guessed. I thought Sirius Black lived there."
Someone else asked: “Am I the only one who thought this was going to be something about Sirius Black's house?”
While another person shared: “I went there once, to look for the place. It took me a while to realise I had already walked past it! I think it's a great idea to hide the ugly scenery.”
And another quipped: “Imagine the surprise a burglar would get."
