All Saints Road: The Mangrove and the Birth of Carnival
Why is it significant?
Walk slowly down All Saints Road, a short row of shops and cafés with flats above. It is calm now. But this little street is one of the most important places in the history of Black Britain.
Key Facts
| Place | All Saints Road: The Mangrove and the Birth of Carnival |
|---|---|
| Address | 8 All Saints Road, London W11 1HH, United Kingdom |
| Geo Coordinates | 51.51800, -0.20460 |
| Part of Walk | Racecourse, Carnival and the Blue Door: Hidden Notting Hill & Portobello Road, London |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk slowly down All Saints Road, a short row of shops and cafés with flats above. It is calm now. But this little street is one of the most important places in the history of Black Britain.
In the late summer of 1958, gangs of white youths roamed Notting Hill attacking West Indian residents, smashing windows and hurling petrol bombs. The riots lasted for days. A few months later, in May 1959, a young Antiguan carpenter named Kelso Cochrane was stabbed to death on a nearby street, and his killers were never convicted. More than a thousand people came to his funeral.
The answer from the community was music. The Trinidad-born journalist and activist Claudia Jones organised a Caribbean carnival in January 1959, indoors, at St Pancras Town Hall, to lift spirits and show off West Indian culture. Then in 1966 a local community worker, Rhaune Laslett, organised a street festival for the neighbourhood, and a steel band led by Russell Henderson walked out into the streets, drawing people behind it. From those beginnings grew the Notting Hill Carnival, which now fills these streets every August bank holiday weekend and draws more than a million people, one of the largest street festivals in Europe.
In 1968 Frank Crichlow opened a Caribbean restaurant at number 8, called the Mangrove. It became a meeting place for activists, artists and writers. It also became a police target, raided again and again. In 1970 the community marched in protest, and nine people, among them Darcus Howe and Altheia Jones-LeCointe, were charged with riot. At the Old Bailey in 1971 the Mangrove Nine defended themselves, and all were cleared of the main charge... and the judge remarked that the trial had shown evidence of racial hatred. The story is told in Steve McQueen's 2020 film Mangrove.
Claudia Jones is buried in Highgate Cemetery, just to the left of Karl Marx. Now carry on to the end of the road, turn left along Tavistock Road and head back to Portobello Road, towards the great concrete roadway you can hear humming ahead of you.