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Notting Hill
Universal Pictures,

London on screen: the blue door from ‘Notting Hill’

Written by
Thomas Hobbs
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Did you know that the famous door from the Richard Curtis romcom ‘Notting Hill’ is still painted blue today? Here’s a look behind the scene…

The location: 280 Westbourne Park Road, Notting Hill (of course).

The scene: Hugh Grant’s bookshop owner starts an unlikely relationship with Julia Roberts’s (fictional) Hollywood superstar. She’s holed up inside his bedsit, besieged by the press – until his eccentric housemate (Rhys Ifans) upstages her by giving the paparazzi a dance in his undies.

Then: The rundown bedsit full of pizza boxes was in fact a set – even in 1999, you’d have been unlikely to find a down-at-heel bookseller living here. The blue door actually belonged to a three-bedroom church conversion, long rumoured to be the home of the film’s writer Richard Curtis.

Now: The flat is valued at around £5 million. The original blue door was auctioned off for charity but its replacement is still popular with selfie-hunters. ‘We get tourists asking for directions every week,’ says the manager of The Castle pub across the street – which, in a parallel universe, is Hugh Grant’s local. ‘A lot of them come back for a drink after. The blue door has been a godsend for local businesses!’

For more of the city on screen, check out our list of the 30 best London movies.

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