Few people know it, but there are houses with false facades in London for a very good reason.

In London you can go out to buy bread and end up finding a secret church, a 17th century pub or a tube station that looks more like a set. The city seems to always keep something hidden behind something else. Although, in few addresses, that is as materialized as on Leinster Gardens Street.

At first glance, nothing particularly stands out about it. The street, in the elegant neighborhood of Bayswater (west of the English capital), looks like a typical British postcard of white facades, staircases and Victorian symmetry. An image that seems designed for someone to walk through in a raincoat and hat under a light drizzle. However, if you look a little closer and pay attention to detail, you begin to notice that something is not as it should.

The windows do not reveal any signs of life. There are no mailboxes. Absolutely no one ever enters or leaves. And the ground floor has an air that seems to be real only from afar. It's normal because they aren't really houses. They are false.

London's most elegant architectural trick

Behind two of those picture-postcard facades there are no molding rooms or five o'clock tea rooms but the tracks of the London Underground. Specifically, a section of the old Metropolitan Line, one of the first underground railway lines in the world.

When the subway connection between Paddington and Bayswater was built in the 19th century, the route required the demolition of two mansions on the street. However, since modifying the route was expensive, they decided to demolish them but pretend that they were still there.

The line was built using a system known as cut and cover, through which the street was opened at the top, the tracks were installed and then everything was covered up again. However, at that specific point, an open area was left to ventilate the smoke from the steam locomotives, so they could not build houses on it again.

The alternative was to raise only the façade and thus respect the aesthetics of the neighborhood. Thus, from the street, numbers 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens Street do not seem to be any different from their neighbors. If you get closer, they begin to reveal themselves and, from behind, they are directly the reverse of a set.

It is, therefore, a technical necessity converted into an impeccable optical-urban illusion. Of course, this is a much better alternative to leaving an ugly and strange gap between elegant buildings.

As expected, these false homes soon fueled local folklore and legends. For decades, they were the scene of pranks and petty scams. Invitations to supposed charity balls or fancy parties were sent to that address, and attendees arrived dressed to the nines to discover they had paid to knock on a door that led nowhere.

This corner has also appeared on screen. Fans of Sherlock, the series starring Benedict Cumberbatch, probably recognize the place. In times of tourism with identical “must see” routes, Leinster Gardens shows that some of the best spots are not in the great monuments, but in the details that one usually overlooks. Save it for your next trip.

Cover photo | David Anstiss