It boasts a mainline railway station, Paddington station, which brings commuters from the west of London (e.g. Slough, Maidenhead, Reading) and going off to Oxford, Bristol , Bath (a Roman city still sporting many examples of Roman architecture), Taunton, Exeter (an excellent cathedral), Plymouth, then Cornwall and also South Wales including Cardiff and Swansea.
In Paddington Station there is a display case showing Paddington Bear, a character of children's fiction who, in the book, is first discovered at this station and hence named after it.
Paddington has several famous sons, notably Alexander Fleming - the scientist who discovered Penicillin (a plaque commemorating this is placed outside his old house in Praed Street) and Alan Turing (brilliant mathematician; there is a plaque on the Hotel where he was born: The Colonnade in Warrington Crescent).
Important places in Paddington include St Mary's hospital (and nurse-training centre) and Paddington Green police station (high-security police station). The IRA bombed the telephone box outside the police station early one morning in the late 1990s as a demonstration to the British security services.
Part of the Grand Union Canal passes through Paddington (this canal links Manchester and London). There are many pubs in the area ranging from antipodean to Irish.
Like many other English towns and cities, it has a namesake in Australia, an inner suburb of Sydney.
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