The Lost Poet

At the quiet end of Portobello Road, behind an unmarked door, sits The Lost Poet, a Victorian townhouse turned charming bed and breakfast. Just four rooms in all, linked by a narrow staircase with a dark wooden banister. Each room carries its own colour: mint and fern in the Quarters, thistle and lavender in the Salon, layered with antiques, bold upholstery and wallpaper so playfully considered that a new detail turns up with every look. Upstairs, in the two-storey Muse suite, a freestanding bathtub sits at the foot of the bed, with a sun room above opening onto its own roof terrace among the lavender. Mornings bring a breakfast bag hung on the door handle, while by day Portobello Market takes over the street outside. To stay at The Lost Poet is to live, briefly, not in a hotel but in a beautifully appointed life of one’s own, right at the heart of Notting Hill — the perfect base for a weekend in London.