The earliest extant references to Padington (or "Padintun", as in the Saxon Chartularies, 959[2]), historically a part of Middlesex, appear in documentation of purported tenth-century land grants to the monks of Westminster by Edgar the Peaceful as confirmed by Archbishop Dunstan.

[5] While a 12th-century document cited by the cleric Isaac Maddox (1697–1759) establishes that part of the land was held by brothers "Richard and William de Padinton".

[5] In the later Elizabethan and early Stuart era, the rectory, manor and associated estate houses were occupied by the Small (or Smale) family.

Jane Small continued to live in Paddington after her second husband's death, and her manor house was big enough to have been let to Sir John Popham, the attorney general, in the 1580s.

These included jewellers, nobility and skilled craftsmen; and men such as Claudius Amyand (surgeon to King George II).

[11]: p.174  The Tyburn gallows might have been a reason why expansion and urban development (from London) slowed in Paddington; as public execution was taking place there up until 1783.

This happened when the bishops leased land to the Grand Junction Canal, where a direct trade link could now take place between London and the Midlands, bringing more employment to the area.

Construction and building projects would take place from east to west and south to north throughout the 19th century; increasing its population in a rapid pace, overtaking the village scene of Paddington.

The district formed the centrepiece of an 1824 masterplan by Samuel Pepys Cockerell to redevelop the Tyburn Estate (historic lands of the Bishop of London) into a residential area to rival Belgravia.

[12] The area was laid out in the mid-1800s when grand squares and cream-stuccoed terraces started to fill the acres between Paddington station and Hyde Park; however, the plans were never realised in full.

It is divided from a northern offshoot Maida Vale by the Regent's Canal; its overlap is the artisan and touristic neighbourhood of Little Venice.

Although Browning was thought to have coined the name "Little Venice" for this spot there are strong arguments Lord Byron was responsible.

In the station are statues of its designer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and the children's fiction character Paddington Bear.

The majority of the housing was bounded by Praed Street, Sussex Gardens, Edgware Road and Norfolk Place.

[25] The public area from the canal to Sheldon Square with the amphitheatre hosts leisure facilities and special events.

[26] A green space and conservation area in the east of the Paddington district immediately to the north of the Westway and west of Edgware Road.

Paddington Green Police Station is immediately to the north west of the intersection of Westway and Edgware Road.

[27] Great Western Railway services from Paddington run towards Slough, Maidenhead and Reading, with intercity services continuing towards destinations in South West England and South Wales, including Oxford, Worcester, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance.

These trains mostly depart from the deep-level Elizabeth line platforms underneath the western side of the mainline station.

The Bakerloo, Circle and District lines call at the station on Praed Street (which, from the main concourse, is opposite platform 3).

This links Paddington directly to destinations across Central and West London, including Baker Street, Earl's Court, Oxford Circus, South Kensington, Victoria, Waterloo, Westminster and Wimbledon.

[27] The Circle and Hammersmith & City lines call at the station near the Paddington Basin (to the north of platform 12).

[34] Santander Cycles, a London-wide bike sharing system, operates in Paddington, with several docking stations in the area.

Heatherwick's website cites the "fluid, coiling tails of the animatronic dinosaurs of Jurassic Park" as the initial influence behind the Bridge.

The land lay derelict until the Paddington Waterside Partnership was established in 1998 to co-ordinate the regeneration of the area between the Westway, Praed Street and Westbourne Terrace.

Development schemes for St. Mary's Hospital and Paddington Square are likely to commence in this period, and the impact of the opening of the Elizabeth line in 2018 would be soon felt.

[11]: p.230  In later years, the actress Yootha Joyce, best known for her part in the classic television comedy George and Mildred, lived at 198 Sussex Gardens.

[44] One of Napoleon's nephews, Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte (1813–1891), a notable comparative linguist and dialectologist, who spent most of his adult life in England, had a house in Norfolk Terrace, Westbourne Park.

Edward Wilson, physician, naturalist and ornithologist, who died in 1912 on Captain Robert Scott's ill-fated British Antarctic expedition, had earlier practised as a doctor in Paddington.

[11]: pp.266 British painter Lucian Freud had his studio in Paddington, first at Delamere Terrace from 1943 to 1962, and then at 124 Clarendon Crescent from 1962 to 1977.