Decorating Leinster Gardens

Leinster Gardens is one of London's most architecturally curious streets, a grand Victorian stucco terrace in Bayswater whose mid-section contains two famous false facades — numbers 23 and 24 — built in 1868 to conceal the ventilation shaft and open section of the Metropolitan Railway running below. Aside from this celebrated quirk, the rest of the street comprises substantial five-storey Italianate terraces typical of the Paddington Estate's mid-Victorian development, with impressive communal gardens that residents share. The street has long attracted international visitors and residents drawn by its central location and dramatic scale.

The imposing stucco facades of Leinster Gardens demand exterior painters who are comfortable on multi-storey scaffold and experienced in the repair and painting of elaborate Italianate detailing — cornices, pilasters and string courses that define the Victorian palazzo character of the street. Interior painting in these large apartment conversions often involves generous principal rooms with original ceiling heights and period plasterwork calling for patient, skilled application.