About Bayswater It wasn’t until the removal of the gallows at Tyburn that the area to the north of Hyde Park began to gain respectability. The arrival of the Great Western Railway at Paddington in 1838 further encouraged development and the gentrification of Bayswater began in earnest. Whilst mainly a residential area, many of the grand townhouses have been converted into smart hotels and serviced apartments. Bayswater’s main drag is Queensway, whose rash of cafés, restaurants and French patisseries keeps buzzing until late in the evening. One whole block of Queensway is taken up by Whiteley’s which opened in 1885 as the city’s first real department store and had the dubious distinction of being Adolf Hitler’s favourite London building.