The land on which our gardens are laid out and the houses backing on built is acquired in 1852 by one Richard Roy. Richard Roy has already developed other parts of the estate, laid out “pleasure grounds”, sometimes called “paddocks”, and set up similar trusts for their management. He had already leased building plots in Ladbroke Gardens and sold the freehold of plots in Arundel Gardens, south side, then known as Lansdowne Road Terrace, to William Wheeler, a building contractor responsible for much of the building on the Ladbroke Estate.
By 1858, what is now our communal garden is a wedge, churned up by the passage of horses and carts, with dumps of building supplies and builders’ debris between the building plots and houses in “carcass” (just the four walls, gaping black holes for windows, with luck, a roof), between Ladbroke Gardens and the separate development of Elgin Crescent, south side.