“The elegant, the prosperous, the polite Tyburnia, the most respectable district of the habitable globe,” marveled the 19th-century English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray. He was lauding the genteel residential neighborhood just north of London’s Hyde Park that he called home.

A century or two before, this ancient district had gorier associations as the site of London’s main gallows, where many prisoners met a gruesome end. These days, this leafy triangle of garden squares, cobbled mews streets and white-stucco terraces forms part of the Bayswater district and includes chichi Connaught Village—one of London’s tiniest but most centrally located village-like enclaves—where you can find Persian patisseries, custom wedding gowns and contemporary art.

Bayswater may be less known to an international audience as neighboring Notting Hill, but its railway station, Paddington, is legendary enough to have inspired a hit West End stage show, thanks to its famous furry-mammal namesake. And more importantly, it’s a very handy hub among global jetsetters who want to be at Heathrow airport within half an hour.

Further bells will chime loudly from the other famous associations on the doorstep, including Selfridges, Park Lane and Hyde Park—which, along with neighboring Kensington Gardens, Green Park and St. James’s Park, forms an almost continuous 720-acre chain of trees and ponds, lawns and flora. Central London’s green lung.

In London’s luxury real estate sphere, Bayswater is also making a sizeable splash. The £3 billion (around $4.04 billion) revamp of its key artery, Queensway, centers around The Whiteley, a famous Victorian shopping emporium reborn as ultra-luxe private residences and the UK’s first Six Senses hotel. Nearby is Park Modern, a new development overlooking Hyde Park, where the recent sale of a £57 million (around $77.6 million) penthouse marked London’s biggest residential........

© Forbes