George and Peggy moved into Leinster Mews Bayswater W2 in 1976. I met them about 20 years ago at our local pub, The Leinster Arms, found at the entrance to their Mews.
Mews Living
A Mews is a row or courtyard of what used to be stables and carriage houses with living quarters above them. They were built to cater for the horses, coachmen and stable-servants of prosperous residents nearby.
There’s a mews in Bayswater a short canter from Lancaster Gate that still has stables with actual real live neighing horses as their residents. Most stables were replaced by garages as motor vehicles replaced horses in the early twentieth century. In more recent years most garages have been converted to Living Rooms.
I live in a small mew close to Leinster Mews. There are only five houses in our humble Victorian cobbled courtyard. The house to the left had a small garage when I moved in. Its new owners converted it into to a very dull ordinary IKEA desked office. I preferred the ramshackle wooden doored garage. The house to the right has a far more flamboyant owner, over 55 years a resident, who has kept his garage where he keeps his racy little TR6.
A Living Link to Working Mews History
44 years ago, when George and Peggy arrived in London, as nearly innocent groovy hip young things, Leinster Mews was still a working Mews. George had come up from a Home County. Peggy from Scotland. You can still pick up Peggy’s shy Lower Highlands accent if you listen closely.
There was a garage in the Mews at Number 16 called Springs. It specialied in servicing Rolls Royces and Bentleys. George opened his own 1000 Sq ft garage, Collingwood’s of Bayswater, at Number 19 and he and Peggy moved into the small rooms above.
I’ve seen an old faded colour Kodachrome print of George and Peggy when they first moved into Leinster Mews. They were standing in a tiny room above Collingwood’s Garage, bare partly plastered walls wires and piping everywhere. People pay for that “urban” look now. In 1976 it was what happens when a young couple put all their energy and money into building a life with a working garage on the ground floor and can’t afford the time to decorate.
Their neighbours were a diverse mix of struggling artists, struggling actors, struggling musicians, struggling popsters, and struggling bohemian Londoners. Not one non-struggling Banker in site in those days.
George built up relationships with several Merchant Banks, advising them on new car purchases whilst simultaneously buying their used cars. Clientele and stock increased and in 1984 Collingwood’s expanded, opening a showroom in Moscow Road Bayswater. George finally closed the Moscow Road Showroom in 1992 and concentrated on his still operational Garage in Leinster Mews until 2010 when he sold Number 19 and moved into Number 8 just opposite.
Whilst George did car stuff Peggy built a successful career in the travel industry working firstly for Thompson Holidays, then Olympic Holidays based locally in Queensway. I have photographed many of the people that Peggy worked with back then although I don’t think our paths ever crossed. She then moved on to be a director of an Aircraft Broker and time with a Housing Association & The Office of National Statistics.
Investing in a community
It’s fair to say that Leinster Mews is a very sociable little street and George and Peggy work hard to make it so.
The glass of Prosecco that welcomed me for for this 20 minute photo shoot evolved into a Chardonnay afternoon of chilled fun and room temperature laughter. We were joined by my wife and our friend New, resident Landlady at The Leinster Arms. Luckily there were no urgent deadlines for the pics.
There’s the annual Summer Mews Party that everyone in the area hopes to be invited to. You can find George at the Barbecue sizzling sausages and burgers. Peggy roaming from one group to another making sure all glasses are full. Children scoot about. A blue plaque was unveiled at the Summer Party in 2018 commemorating Thora Hird who once lived here. Members of her family, themselves ex-residents, were present.
There’s a Halloween Pumpkin Competition this year. It’s obviously for the children who live here but us grown up adults are invited to participate and lose to a five year old.
We’ve often all travelled charabanc style to Pizza Express Jazz Cafe to enjoy a former resident (a no-longer-struggling musician) play his jazz tunes. He always lets his ex-neighbours know when he’s in Town and rewards them with a shout-out during the set. He really does cherish his time in the Mews and the people he lived amongst.
Whilst George and Peggy and so many of their neighbours invest in their community there’s a Bull Market increase in people that buy here to solely invest in their property portfolio. Empty-properties-not-homes, owned by invisible financiers, rented out on the sort term AirBNB market are on the increase. George and Peggy make no judgement about these invisible owners but there is a sadness that something is slowly being lost.
I am not a Number. I am a Free Man
Fear not. George hasn’t given up everything four wheeled and continues the fight for The Bohemian Lifestyle. He’s kept his beloved Cosworth Lotus 7 Mk2. George purchased this in 1967 after watching Patrick McGoohan in the cult TV Series The Prisoner. It took only moments to wheel the yellow Cosworth out of his tiny garage. I worried that we would scratch the paintwork, forgetting that George has rolled cars out of tiny garage spaces by the tens & tens of thousands since 1976. Good to know he’s still got it.
Steve Dunlop Photographer 