{"id":1146,"date":"2010-03-23T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T10:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=1146"},"modified":"2010-06-04T13:46:36","modified_gmt":"2010-06-04T12:46:36","slug":"the-incredible-fake-houses-in-paddington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/the-incredible-fake-houses-in-paddington\/","title":{"rendered":"The incredible fake houses of Paddington"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/images\/leinster-gardens-paddington.jpg\" alt=\"The incredible fake houses in Paddington\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>A deceptive fa\u00e7ade at 23\/24 Leinster Gardens, Paddington, London W2<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><!--more--><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Metropolitan Railway &#8211; the world&#8217;s first underground railway &#8211; began conveying passengers in 1863, with the subterranean lines constructed using a method called &#8216;cut and cover&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>As the name implies, this involved digging a hole to house the underground tracks, and then covering over the tunnel.<\/p>\n<p>The route of the line between Paddington and Bayswater (opened in 1868) necessitated the demolition of 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens, situated on a long, upmarket terrace of five storey houses.<\/p>\n<p>To restore the symmetry of the terrace, it was decided to cover up the gaping hole by building a 5ft-thick fa\u00e7ade which perfectly matched the houses either side of the break from the road.<\/p>\n<p>It was a different story from the back though, as you can see below!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/images\/leinster-gardens-paddington-1.jpg\" alt=\"The incredible fake houses in Paddington\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The fake frontage shares the same balconies, columns and decoration as its neighbours &#8211; it even has a pretend wooden door &#8211; but keen eyed passers-by might suspect something&#8217;s up when they observe the eighteen blackened windows.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full story here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/leinster.html\" target=\"_blank\">Leinster Gardens &#8211; Dummy houses in the heart of London<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A deceptive fa\u00e7ade at 23\/24 Leinster Gardens, Paddington, London W2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,193],"tags":[199,1200],"class_list":["post-1146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-places","tag-architecture","tag-railways"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/leinster-gardens-paddington.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-iu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1146"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1148,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions\/1148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}