Former residents include the novelist George Gissing, artist Walter Sickert, playwright Joe Orton, and the author Nina Bawden.
In 1967, Orton was murdered in his apartment at 25 Noel Road by his long-term partner Kenneth Halliwell, who committed suicide shortly after.
[1] The novelist George Gissing (1875–1903) lived at 5 Hanover Street (now 60 Noel Road) from 1879 to 1880.
[1] The playwright Joe Orton and his long-term partner Kenneth Halliwell lived in the top floor flat at 25 Noel Road from 1959 until 9 August 1967, when Halliwell killed the 34-year-old Orton there with nine hammer blows to the head, and then killed himself with an overdose of Nembutal.
[1] The author Nina Bawden lived at 22 Noel Road for 36 years, from 1976 until her death in 2012.