The Kensington nobody knows

Mr Londoner explores the hidden corners of this desirable west London neighbourhood.

Everyone knows Kensington. Or at least they think they do. It’s been part of the well- trodden tourist trail for years. That’s because it’s a comfortable and elegant residential enclave. And it’s especially popular with American and French expats and embassy staff.

And what’s not to like? Kensington Palace, birthplace of Queen Victoria and once home to Princess Di, is just up the road, a little way to the east. So too is the Royal Albert Hall, famous for its musical ‘Proms’. To the south is the cultural enclave of ‘Museum Mile’ – home to the Victoria & Albert, Science and Natural History Museums. Head west and you’ll come to the Design museum, in the former HQ of the Commonwealth Institute.

A little further west is Olympia, with its grand exhibition halls – former home to the Royal Tournaments and the world’s very first motor show. Here many top performers wowed the crowds, including the late, great Jimi Hendrix. These famously-magnificent Victorian iron- clad halls are now the subject of an ambitious redevelopment by leading architect Thomas Heatherwick.

Kensington and Chelsea became London’s swinging epicentre during the 1960s. It inherited the mantle from Carnaby Street, when the psychedelic ‘peacock revolution’ moved moved west. So Kensington Market and the King’s Road became the new place to be. Not for nothing was Austin Powers’s girlfriend called Vanessa Kensington.

Hornets vintage menswear – a surprising hidden gem @meetmrlondoner

Liberated women

Kensington has Anglo-Saxon origins. It’s referenced in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Chenesit. The name Kensington remains mysterious, but possibly derives from Cynesige’s farm. In Norman times, the Manor of Kensington was eventually awarded to Sir Aubrey de Vere. The de Veres became the Earls of Oxford and remained lords of the manor until the 16th century, when the estate was divided up. Fine houses were built on the land. The wealthy new owners enjoyed the bucolic pleasures of their perfectly-situated country estates. To the south, their lands were bordered by nurseries and market gardens – and all within easy reach of London and the Royal Court. The neighbourhood’s rural character was transformed in the 19th century with a massive building boom, during which time it became a London metropolitan borough.

Kensington became home to Barker’s department store in 1926. The building is now an organic supermarket. However, its arresting Art Deco architecture by Bernard George, shines out to this day. Department stores, with their democratic principles of a welcome to all, liberated the lives of women. Young women in particular could head to these modern, but respectable, institutions unescorted by a man. As time went on they became more at ease walking around town on their own, or in pairs.

Decades later, the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and the availability of the pill, further revolutionised women’s lives. At least it did here in Kensington – for an affluent elite. From 1967, during the Summer of Love, Kensington Market was at the heart of bohemian London. Freddy Mercury of Queen fame worked on a stall here, as did Ozzy Osbourne, front-man of heavy-metal band Black Sabbath. Sadly, Kensington Market is long-gone. Its three storeys fell to the wrecking ball in the 1990s. But there’s plenty of hidden history in the neighbourhood, if you know where to look.

Kensington Square still maintains its residential feel and is home to some delightful properties @meetmrlondoner

The perfect garden Square

Kensington Square is tucked to the south of High Street Kensington, moments from its tube station. This is the perfect London garden square with the pub in the corner. See if you can find the blue plaques to Britain’s first Chief Medical Officer and public health pioneer Sir John Simon. The occupant of the house next door was 19th century artist Edward Burne-Jones. Nearby is another plaque to actress Beatrice Rose Stella Tanner, better recognised by her stage name, Mrs Patrick Campbell. ‘Mrs Pat’ – as she was known – was famous for her Shakespearean roles and staring in the plays of Pater Pan author, JM Barrie. Her career began in the Victorian era and ended in film, having been one of the earlier British actors to make their mark in Hollywood.

St Mary Abbots Church was bult in 1872. It boasts London’s tallest church spire @meetmrlondoner

Country lane

Kensington Church Street was once a country lane linking Kensington to its well-heeled neighbour, Notting Hill. It was traditionally famous for its antique shops. However high rents have forced many of these businesses elsewhere – mainly online. St Mary Abbots is the neighbourhood’s most notable building. It boasts the tallest spire in London and there has been a church here since the 12th century. This version was built in 1872 by George Gilbert Scott. Its neo-gothic interior is a wonder. You wind your way up to the building through a narrow but leafy alleyway, Church Walk. This is home to several boutique shops, including Hornets – a quirky vintage store selling historic menswear and militaria. It’s an unexpected find here in Kensington.

The charmingly car-free Gordon Place @meetmrlondoner

This somewhat hidden enclave, is home to other attractive streets away from the noise and the bustle and the traffic, including Gordon Place. This is a charming residential street lit by old-fashioned gas-lamps and it’s only accessible on foot. Just around the corner is Drayson Mews. This curving cobbled street formerly comprised of workshops, stables, and garages. Today these properties have become highly desirable. They were converted in the 1950s and 60s into what were then affordable but centrally-located living quarters for a growing middle class. Mews properties became fashionable in the way that some modern Londoners aspire to live in Victorian warehouse conversions today. And they too attracted a ‘fab’ crowd of photographers, artists and designers. Like many formerly humble buildings, they are now well beyond the price range of many looking to buy or rent in London.

Hawks and kestrels

The term mews is sometimes misunderstood. It derives from the French verb muer – to ‘moult’. This reflects the property’s original function – to confine hunting birds while they lost their feathers. These majestic hawks and kestrels gradually became replaced by horses – and the horses by cars. Often, the chauffeurs to a great house would live, above their vehicles, in the upper storey of an adjacent mews’ property. Here, they were comfortably away from the temptations of their employers’ female servants, who were billeted in the attic rooms of posh houses, close to their masters and mistresses.

Kensington Square resident and public health pioneer Sir John Simons. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Campden Hill Road and Phillimore Gardens comprise gracious stucco-fronted villas. Both these attractive thoroughfares head north, up-hill, towards prestigious and leafy Holland Park. Many of the original dwellings are colonnaded Georgian buildings in the Palladian or Neo-classical style. Many are set back from the road with gardens or large paved driveways, sometimes accommodating luxury cars or a massive SUVs. Londoners nickname these oversize gas-guzzlers ‘Chelsea tractors’. They remain a curiously-popular choice for navigating London’s historically narrow, congested and contested streets.

The 19th-century cobblestones of Drayson Mews @meetmrlondoner

On Hornton Street, the brutalist architecture of Kensington Town Hall and Library stands in complete contrast. This was opened in 1977 and displays impressive artworks by Barbara Hepworth and Jacob Epstein. Its architect, Sir Basil Spence, died just ten days after its unveiling. Its central courtyard once contained a giant redwood tree, planted ten years earlier by Baroness Spencer-Churchill, to remember her late husband, Sir Winston. The former PM died aged 90 in 1965 at his London home, Hyde Park Gate, less than a mile away from High Street Kensington. It would be nice to see the missing tree planted to commemorate our wartime leader replaced one day.

 

Mr Londoner is writer, broadcaster and former museum director Antony Robbins. Meet Mr Londoner here