The Kensington District

Kensington District, by
Geraldine Edith Mitton

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Title: The Kensington District The Fascination of London
Author: Geraldine Edith Mitton
Editor: Walter Besant
Release Date: May 30, 2007 [EBook #21643]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE FASCINATION OF LONDON

THE KENSINGTON DISTRICT

IN THIS SERIES.
Cloth, price 1s. 6d. net; leather, price 2s. net, each.
THE STRAND DISTRICT.
By Sir WALTER BESANT and G. E. MITTON.
WESTMINSTER.
By Sir WALTER BESANT and G. E. MITTON.
HAMPSTEAD AND MARYLEBONE.
By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT.
CHELSEA.
By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT.
KENSINGTON.
By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT.
HOLBORN AND BLOOMSBURY.
By G. E. MITTON. Edited by Sir WALTER BESANT.

[Illustration: HOLLAND HOUSE.
Herbert Railton]

The Fascination of London

KENSINGTON
BY G. E. MITTON
EDITED BY SIR WALTER BESANT
LONDON ADAM & CHARLES BLACK 1903

PREFATORY NOTE
A survey of London, a record of the greatest of all cities, that should
preserve her history, her historical and literary associations, her mighty
buildings, past and present, a book that should comprise all that
Londoners love, all that they ought to know of their heritage from the
past--this was the work on which Sir Walter Besant was engaged when
he died.
As he himself said of it: "This work fascinates me more than anything
else I've ever done. Nothing at all like it has ever been attempted before.
I've been walking about London for the last thirty years, and I find
something fresh in it every day."
Sir Walter's idea was that two of the volumes of his survey should
contain a regular and systematic perambulation of London by different
persons, so that the history of each parish should be complete in itself.
This was a very original feature in the great scheme, and one in which
he took the keenest interest. Enough has been done of this section to
warrant its issue in the form originally intended, but in the meantime it
is proposed to select some of the most interesting of the districts and
publish them as a series of booklets, attractive alike to the local
inhabitant and the student of London, because much of the interest and
the history of London lie in these street associations.
The difficulty of finding a general title for the series was very great, for
the title desired was one that would express concisely the undying
charm of London--that is to say, the continuity of her past history with
the present times. In streets and stones, in names and palaces, her

history is written for those who can read it, and the object of the series
is to bring forward these associations, and to make them plain. The
solution of the difficulty was found in the words of the man who loved
London and planned the great scheme. The work "fascinated" him, and
it was because of these associations that it did so. These links between
past and present in themselves largely constitute The Fascination of
London.
G. E. M.

KENSINGTON
When people speak of Kensington they generally mean a very small
area lying north and south of the High Street; to this some might add
South Kensington, the district bordering on the Cromwell and
Brompton Roads, and possibly a few would remember to mention West
Kensington as a far-away place, where there is an entrance to the Earl's
Court Exhibition. But Kensington as a borough is both more and less
than the above. It does not include all West Kensington, nor even the
whole of Kensington Gardens, but it stretches up to Kensal Green on
the north, taking in the cemetery, which is its extreme northerly limit.
If we draw a somewhat wavering line from the west side of the
cemetery, leaving outside the Roman Catholic cemetery, and continue
from here to Uxbridge Road Station, thence to Addison Road Station,
and thence again through West Brompton to Chelsea Station, we shall
have traced roughly the western boundary of the borough. It covers an
immense area, and it begins and ends in a cemetery, for at the
south-western corner is the West London, locally known as the
Brompton, Cemetery. In shape the borough is strikingly like a man's
leg and foot in a top-boot. The western line already traced is the back of
the leg,