Kensington Square

“ The heart and core of Kensington is the district gathered around Kensington Square; this is the most redolent of interesting memories, from the days when the maids of honour lived in it to the present time, and in itself has furnished material for many a book. Close by in Young Street lived Thackeray, and the Square figures many times in his works. Further northward the Palace and Gardens are closely associated with the lives of our kings, from William III. onward. Northward above Notting Hill is a very poor district, poor enough to rival many an East-End parish. ”

“ Kensington Square in James Second’s reign, 1698.
Church Street probably took its name from the church at the end, or from the house called Church House, which was occupied by the “poore of the sufferance.”
Camden House was built by Sir Baptist Hickes, who possessed considerable property in the parish in 1612.
Phillamore Place was built 1787, and in 1811 David Wilkie, Esq., R.A., resided here. His works the “Blind Fiddler,” “Rent Day,” “Village Holiday,” &c., will be remembered by all.
Sir Isaac Newton, who by the way was never married, lived on Camden Hill. ”

“ It may really be said that Kensington Gardens contain some of the finest rural scenery in England. If they were not a huge city square, they would be an admirable nobleman's park. To sit down for an hour at the base of one of the great elms and see them studding the grass around you in vistas, which, as you do not perceive their limits, may be as long-drawn as you choose to suppose them, is one of the most accessible as well as one of the most agreeable methods of spending a June afternoon. ”

“ Lady Sarah told Dolly that Mrs. Francis had known Talleyrand, when he was living there in one of the old houses of the Square. At any time it would be easy to conjure up ghosts of great people with such incantations of crumbling wall and oaken device and panel. Not Talleyrand only, but a whole past generation, still lives for us among these quaint old ruins.
The Kensington tradespeople used to be Conservative, as was natural, with a sentry in the High Street, and such a ménagerie of lions and unicorns as that which they kept over their shop-fronts. ”

“ There is not in all London a quieter spot, or one, apparently, more withdrawn from the heat and bustle of life than Newsome Terrace. It is a cul-de-sac, for at the upper end the roadway between its two lines of square, compact little residences is brought to an end by a high brick wall, while at the lower end, the only access to it is through Newsome Square, that small discreet oblong of Georgian houses, a relic of the time when Kensington was a suburban village sundered from the metropolis by a stretch of pastures stretching to the river. ”

“ The backs of the houses in Latimer Road are seen across the common on the west; these houses, however, lie without the Kensington boundary line. A road called St. Helen's Gardens bounds the common on the east, and leads to St. Helen's Church, which is a severely plain red-brick building. North of St. Quintin Avenue is another great stretch of common, and at its south-eastern [Pg 92] corner lies St. Charles's Square. The square was named after St. Charles's College, a Roman Catholic establishment, which forms an imposing mass at the east side. ”

“ James’s Square and before her final apotheosis in Kensington Gore. The white-painted semi-circular front of her former residence at the corner of Pitt’s Head Mews, may still be seen; and it will not take a great stretch of the imagination to picture that beautiful and talented woman surrounded by all that extravagance and luxury could suggest, sitting upon its balcony, and penning those short stories, or editing those wonderful “books of beauty,” which formed the fashionable literary pabulum of early Victorian days. ”

“ Be this, however, as it may, Chelsea Hospital and the old pensioners are amongst the unchanged things of London.
The suburb of Kensington Proper seems to have varied less than most of the others of which I have made passing mention. Some rows of modern houses have indeed grown up about Camden Hill; but the High Street, and the square, and the turning up by the old church are pretty much about what I remember them thirty years ago. ”

“ But then most of these are, like old Kensington Palace, really of Queen's Anne's time, and the original is ever better than the imitation. No doubt, to the inhabitant, there are accompanying drawbacks to some of these; beetles of long standing may infest their grimy kitchens, and their ancient oak panelling may be prolific in those large rats which are so unpleasantly suggestive, to the nervous, of ghosts.
Queen Square is the oldest of all the Bloomsbury Squares; for in 1746 London hardly extended further than the northern end of Southampton Row, all beyond being more or less open country. ”

“ Kensington, however, was once no faint miniature of the staid British suburb. The river bending to the eastward there conducts certain of the streets crookedly away from the rectangular Quaker demon who is ever seeking to square them. Along the water side, or near it, passes a sort of Quay Street, between ship-yards and fish-houses on the one side, and shops or small tenements on the other, and this street scarcely discloses the small monument on the site of the Treaty [Pg 156] Tree, where William Penn in person satisfied the momentary expectations of his Indian subjects. ”

“ The square space thus formed beside the first landing, and the spandril space beside the rise of the stairs, are filled with representations, in chiaro-oscuro, of sea-horses, armorial trophies and other devices, and scroll-work, heightened by gilding. These, as well as similar paintings on the arcade, opposite and under the stairs, show that Kent’s taste and skill as a decorative artist were by no means contemptible, whereas as a painter of subjects or figures he was no artist at all. ”

“ Very early on a July morning in 1919 Constable Brown was on his beat in Kensington, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cathcart Square.
Cathcart Square was an old-fashioned backwater of this highly respectable suburb. It had not been built on any regular lines. Small, narrow houses nestled comfortably by the side of what might be called mansions. At the entrance to the Square itself, a narrow-fronted milk-shop stood next door to a palatial residence. The dairy was very old, and the Square, with its strange agglomeration of houses, had been built round it. ”

“ Beyond Petersburg Place was Victoria Place, which led to a field upon which are now built Leinster and Princes Squares and Kensington Gardens Square.
A footpath across this field led to Westbourne Grove. This footpath was the only way except Black Lion Lane by which Westbourne Grove could be reached. So much was this field in the country that I have several times seen Sunday School children taken there for their annual excursions.
A little farther down the road was Camden Street, a perfect rookery. Dirty men, women and children infested this place. ”

“ The distance from Kensington to Trinity Square is 33,150 lineal feet, or 6 miles and 1,470 feet, of which a little more than a third—that is, 10,974 feet—or 2 miles and 414 feet, are open cuttings or glass-covered stations, and a little less than two-thirds, or 4 miles and 1,056 feet, are in tunnel. The open cuttings and the tunnels are constantly alternating ”

“ Cuthbert's, in Philbeach Gardens, in the ritualism of its services. Both churches are very highly decorated. In St. Cuthbert's the interior is of great height, and the walls ornamentally worked in stone; there is a handsome oak screen, and a very fine statue of the Virgin and Child by Sir Edgar Boehm in the Lady Chapel; in both churches the seats are all free.
Edwardes Square, with its houses on the north side bordering Kensington Road, is peculiarly [Pg 39] attractive, with a large garden in the centre, and an old-world air about its houses, which are mostly small. ”

“ It can hardly be seen at all in summer on account of the extent of the grounds of 55 acres stretching around it, and making it a country place in the midst of a town. It has the largest private grounds of any house in London, not excepting Buckingham Palace, yet from the road all that can be seen is a rather dreary field. Oddly enough, there is a considerable hill on the west, though no trace of this hill is to be found in Kensington Road; it is, however, the same fall that affects Holland Park Avenue on the north. ”

“ A bright red-brick church of the Unitarians is a little further on. Behind the Mall is Kensington Palace Gardens—really a slice of the Gardens—a wide road with immense houses, correctly designated mansions, standing back in their own grounds. This road is only open to ordinary traffic on sufferance, and is liable to be closed at any time. ”

“ The light of these days is very exquisite, so gently bright, without any glare,—a veiled glow. In short, it is the kindliest mood of Nature, and almost enough to compensate for chill and dreary months. Moreover, there is more of such weather here than the English climate has ever had credit for.
Kensington Gardens form an eminently beautiful piece of artificial woodland and park scenery. The old palace of Kensington, now inhabited by the Duchess of Inverness, stands at one extremity; an edifice of no great mark, built of brick, covering much ground, and low in proportion to its extent. ”

“ Every one is bursting with loyalty towards the girl of eighteen suddenly called upon to rule over the nation, and crowds throng the old-fashioned High Street of Kensington at the end by Palace Green, eager to see Her Majesty drive forth from Kensington Palace. They are kept at a respectful distance by a sentry in a dress which succeeding generations will think absurd. ”

“ Kensington, as it is now, is an all-embracing (p. 211) name, a generic term; it comprises not only Old Kensington, but both "West Kensington," a new and quickly increasing district of tall flats and "Queen Anne" houses, as far removed from London proper, for all practical purposes, as St. Albans; and "South Kensington," a dull and uninteresting quarter, but close to all the big West-end museums and collections, and where no self-respecting lady or gentleman of the professional or "middle classes" can really help living. ”

“ And now we have traversed Kensington from end to end, and in so doing have come across many notable men and many fair women. Kensington is royal among suburbs on account of its Palace, and its annals include history as well as the anecdotes of great men. Yet though old associations live in name and tradition, none of the buildings, as at present standing, date back further than the older parts of Holland House and Kensington Palace, and the greater part are much more modern. ”

“ The Church has been distinguished for its readiness of adjustment to new opportunities and occasions. The development of modern London has drawn Kensington from its position of a secluded proximity to the City, into actual organic union with it. All the problems of London to-day are ours. We are no longer outside of it. Our life is Metropolitan. The change has been faced by the Church with a frank recognition and a cheerful courage. ”

“ KENT also had a great reputation as a horticulturist, and was generally designated, at the end of last century, as the “Father of Modern Gardening”—his ghastly progeny consisting of the destructive and desolating “landscape-gardening” enterprises of “Capability Brown,” Repton, and their followers. His hand doubtless fell heavy on the old Queen Anne formal gardens about Kensington Palace. ”

“ CCESS to the state rooms open to the public being by way of the “Queen’s” or “Denmark Staircase,” situated in the northernmost angle of the building, visitors approach it from the north-west corner of “Kensington Gardens,” where, as we have already explained, were formerly situated those parts of the old formal gardens attached to the Palace, which were laid out by Queen Anne, called the “Old Gravel Pit,” the “Wilderness,” etc. The path here, leading straight up to the present public entrance, was then known as “Brazen-face Walk.” ”

“ No one was in the vicinity, and we were walking very slowly, for, truth to tell, I desired to delay our parting until the very last moment. Of all the leafy spots in giant London, there is none so rural, so romantic, or so picturesque in summer as that portion of Kensington Gardens lying between Queen’s Gate and the Broad Walk. ”

“ Extensive grounds at Earl’s Court are open from time to time for various exhibitions. Further notable buildings in Kensington are the town-hall and free library in High Street, which is also much frequented for its excellent shops, and the Brompton Consumption Hospital, Fulham Road. In Holland Park Road is the house of Lord Leighton (d. 1896) , given to the nation, and open, with its art collection, to the public.
Kensington is a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of London. The parliamentary borough of Kensington has north and south divisions, each returning one member. ”

“ Kensington Palace and the Round Pond.
(p. 215) But Kensington has not changed in essentials. In those old days it was already, as it is now, a great Roman Catholic quarter, with convents and shops for the sale of sacred objects. No great cathedral had as yet been built there; no Newman as yet looked steadfastly from his marble alcove over the noisy Brompton Road; the tendencies in that direction were, however, already paramount.
When a London suburb has once become crowded with houses, what was once picturesque becomes speedily squalid and sordid ”