The Kensington District | Page 2

the Brompton Cemetery is the heel, the sole extends from here
up Fulham Road and Walton Street, and ends at Hooper's Court, west
of Sloane Street. This, it is true, makes a very much more pointed toe
than is usual in a man's boot, for the line turns back immediately down
the Brompton Road. It cuts across the back of Brompton Square and

the Oratory, runs along Imperial Institute Road, and up Queen's Gate to
Kensington Gore. Thence it goes westward to the Broad Walk, and
follows it northward to the Bayswater Road. Thus we leave outside
Kensington those essentially Kensington buildings the Imperial
Institute and Albert Hall, and nearly all of Kensington Gardens. But we
shall not omit an account of these places in our perambulation, which is
guided by sense-limits rather than by arbitrary lines.
The part left outside the borough, which is of Kensington, but not in it,
has belonged from time immemorial to Westminster (see same series,
Westminster, p. 2).
If we continue the boundary-line we find it after the Bayswater Road
very irregular, traversing Ossington Street, Chepstow Place, a bit of
Westbourne Grove, Ledbury Road, St. Luke's Road, and then curving
round on the south side of the canal for some distance before crossing it
at Ladbroke Grove, and continuing in the Harrow Road to the western
end of the cemetery from whence we started.
The borough is surrounded on the west, south, and east respectively by
Hammersmith, Chelsea, and Paddington, and the above boundaries,
roughly given as they are, will probably be detailed enough for the
purpose.
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. Associations cluster around Campden and Little
Campden Houses, and the still existing Holland House, where gathered
many who were notable for ability as well as high birth. To Campden
House Queen Anne, then Princess, brought her sickly little son as to a
country house at the "Gravel Pits," but the child never lived to inherit
the throne. Not far off lived Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest philosopher

the world has ever known, who also came to seek health in the fresh air
of Kensington.
The southern part of the borough is comparatively new. Within the last
sixty years long lines of houses have sprung up, concealing beneath
unpromising exteriors, such as only London houses can show, comfort
enough and to spare. This is a favourite residential quarter, though we
now consider it in, not "conveniently near," town. Snipe were shot in
the marshes of Brompton, and nursery gardens spread themselves over
the area now devoted to the museums and institute. It is rather
interesting to read the summary of John Timbs, F.S.A., writing so late
as 1867: "Kensington, a mile and a half west of Hyde Park Corner,
contains the hamlets of Brompton, Earl's Court, the Gravel Pits, and
part of Little Chelsea, now West Brompton, but the Royal Palace and
about twenty other houses north of the road are in the parish of St.
Margaret's, Westminster." He adds that Brompton has long been
frequented by invalids on account of its genial air. Faulkner, the local
historian of all South-West London, speaks of the "delightful
fruit-gardens of Brompton and Earl's Court."
The origin of the name Kensington is obscure. In Domesday Book it is
called Chenesitum, and in other ancient records Kenesitune and
Kensintune, on which Lysons comments: "Cheneesi was a proper name.
A person of that name held the Manor of Huish in Somersetshire in the
reign of Edward the Confessor." This is apparently entirely without
foundation. Other writers have attempted to connect the name with
Kings-town, with equal ill-success. The true derivation seems to be
from the Saxon tribe of the Kensings or Kemsings, whose name also
remains in the little village of Kemsing in Kent.
HISTORY.
From Domesday Book we learn that the Manor of Kensington had
belonged to a certain Edward or Edwin, a thane, during the reign of
Edward the Confessor. It was granted by William I. to Geoffrey,
Bishop of Coutances, under whom it was held by Alberic or Aubrey de
Ver or Vere. The Bishop died in 1093, and Aubrey then held it directly
from the Crown.

Aubrey's son Godefrid or Geoffrey, being under obligations to the
Abbot of Abingdon, persuaded his father to grant