London is a city that has more secrets than one could ever imagine — and one of the best secrets is London's mews. A mews is a street that was formerly used to accommodate horses and carriages, but many have now been transformed into some of the hottest and most expensive realty in London. Many mews house the most colorful residences in London or hold unique secrets such as the studio where Adele recorded one of her albums or a giant mural of the UK flag as the shopfront of a wedding boutique.
They are scattered all over the city and are often passed by because of their incognito status as tourist sights. You can see them often used as the backdrops for fashion bloggers and photographers, but there's no reason visitors or even locals shouldn't know about these quaint streets. These are the 14 best and most beautiful mews in London that will have you wishing you could afford a home there.
Near the Victoria and Albert Museum and Harrods, this colorful mews has a charming vibe and vintage iron-wrought balconies. To put in perspective how expensive a home here would be, a 280-square-foot home went on sale for £800,000 earlier this year.`
In Kensington, this archway mews is always covered with ivy or some kind of beautiful greenery. The residents of this street make sure to keep the fronts of their homes looking quite elegant as this is one of the more popular mews in London for photographers to seek out.
For music-lovers, Codrington Mews is heaven. This mews is the home of XL Recordings, where Adele produced her album 21. You can also find references to Thom Yorke’s album The Eraser and The XX’s album Coexist painted on the sides of the studio.
Few mews give a time stamp of their creation, but Horbury Mews is one that tells you exactly when it was built. This street is nestled away in Notting Hill and has lots of pastel homes to peruse.
If you've watched Love Actually, you've already seen this pretty in pink home. Down St. Luke's Mews, you can find the flat that Keira Knightley's character inhabits in the film. The owner keeps the house beautifully floral all year due to the amount of film location seekers who come by this Notting Hill staple.
This patriotic symbol of the United Kingdom lives down Colville Mews and is the front to Temperley, a bridal boutique. It's right off of the vintage markets of Portobello Road and is very hidden down this street, so you definitely have to be on the lookout for a large Union Jack flag peeking out.
This Paddington mews is probably one of the most vividly rainbow-colored of them all. There's bright pink, baby blue, sherbet orange, and sunshine yellow all in the same row of houses. On a sunny day, this mews makes for a perfect photo shoot location.
Near the north end of Hyde Park is a mews you can only reach through a small archway. With a hot pink house to greet you at the entrance and vintage cars lined up down the entire street, it's definitely worth a stop to see.
All the best mews make you feel like you've walked back in time a little bit. This mews is one with cobbled streets and old-style homes on both sides of the path. While this isn't the most colorful of mews, many of the locals put lots of shrubbery and flowers out front of their houses to bring a bit of brightness to the road.
In Bayswater, if you find an electric blue pub called The Leinster Arms, you've come to the right place, because hidden next to it is this lovely mews.
Near the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington, this royalty named mews is stately in appearance. It feels a bit more modernized than many of the other mews in the city, but it's just as picturesque. There's a lovely pub on the corner and a millennial pink wall for those who need a backdrop for selfies.
This mews is unique because it's actually made up of three streets in a fork-like layout. Each street has a color wheel of houses, all in pale pastel hues. It lies right behind the Science Museum and there are tiny, secret passageways between each of the streets so you can cut corners if you're in a bit of a hurry to see them all.
This mews is an outlier because it's not near any of the rest. Near Regent's Park, this odd little mews is very unique compared to others in the city. The front of the building that the mews lies behind is painted black and a pink and green bike sits at the entrance in very posed positions. It's a favorite of Instagrammers.
Walking into this mews feels like walking into a secret garden. The whole street is overrun with ivy and greenery. And unlike other mews that were completely converted from horse stables into homes, this street still has a stable where you can take riding lessons.
