Leinster Gardens is a street in Bayswater

Bayswater

Bayswater is an area of west London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the west . It is a built-up district located 3 miles west-north-west of Charing Cross, bordering the north of Hyde Park over Kensington Gardens and having a population density of...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. It has two false façade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

s at numbers 23 & 24, constructed at the time of the original steam engine

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

-hauled underground railway

Metropolitan railway

Metropolitan Railway can refer to:* Metropolitan line, part of the London Underground* Metropolitan Railway, the first underground railway to be built in London...

 that had a short section exposed to the surface.

Locomotive

Locomotive

A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...

s were fitted with condenser

Steam locomotive condensing apparatus

A steam locomotive condensing apparatus differs in purpose from the usual closed cycle steam engine condenser, in that its function is primarily either to recover water, or to avoid excessive emissions to the atmosphere, rather than maintaining a vacuum to improve both efficiency and power...

s to reduce fumes, but "venting off" was still needed in open-air sections to relieve the condensers and keep the tunnels free from smoke. In this upmarket area, the railway company

Metropolitan railway

Metropolitan Railway can refer to:* Metropolitan line, part of the London Underground* Metropolitan Railway, the first underground railway to be built in London...

 hid this unsightly practice from residents. The false façade also maintained a continuous frontage

Frontage

Frontage is the full length of a plot of land or a building measured alongside the road on to which the plot or building fronts. This is considered especially important for certain types of commercial and retail real estate, in applying zoning bylaws and property tax...

 along a prestigious terrace

Terraced house

In architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...

.

The façade is 5 feet (1.5 m) thick with 18 blackened windows. The doors have no letter boxes.

In the 1930s, a hoax

Hoax

A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...

 was played on guests who were sold ten-Guinea

Guinea (British coin)

The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1813...

 tickets to a charity ball

Ball (dance)

A ball is a formal dance. The word 'ball' is derived from the Latin word "ballare", meaning 'to dance'; the term also derived into "bailar", which is the Spanish and Portuguese word for dance . In Catalan it is the same word, 'ball', for the dance event.Attendees wear evening attire, which is...

 at Leinster Gardens, only to turn up in evening dress

Evening dress

Evening dress may refer to:* White tie, the most formal civilian dress code in Western fashion* Black tie, a semi-formal dress code for evening events and social functions in Western fashion...

 to discover the address was fake.

Adjacent streets and areas include Queensway

Queensway (London)

Queensway is a bustling cosmopolitan street in the Bayswater district of west London. It contains many restaurants , pubs, letting agents, and high street stores...

 and Craven Hill Gardens

Craven Hill Gardens

Craven Hill Gardens is a garden square bordering the Paddington and Bayswater areas within the City of Westminster, London. It largely consists of Victorian era properties now either hotels or residences, but is notable for the presence of , an upmarket hotel, and Kenneth Frampton's , an...

.