JOHN LINNELL (1792-1882) painted the Kensington gravel pits in about 1811. The picture hangs in London’s Tate Britain These pits lay alongside Bayswater Road and Notting Hill Gate. They provided gravel for building projects in England and as far away as Imperial Russia.

Today, the pits no longer exist. They have been built over, but street names such as St Petersburg Place and Moscow Road commemorate the fortunes made by selling gravel from these pits to Russia.

You can discover more about this and much more about Paddington and Kensington and points further west in my book “BEYOND MARYLEBONE AND MAYFAIR: EXPLORING WEST LONDON” (see https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0B7CR679W/