I often think, as I am reading history, what a contrast exists between its background of natural scenery, and the prospect now before our eyes on the spot to which the history refers. We should not know Kensington if we could see it as it was when Hornton Street Chapel was being built. Then all around was rural. Notting Hill and the whole way to Paddington—where was the parish boundary to the north—exhibited fields bordered by hedgerows. Holland Park, to the west, was a lordly demesne such as you see now “down in the shires,” and the boundary of the parish in that direction, at what used to be called Compton Bridge, was marked by a turnpike gate not long ago removed; beyond it lay a bit of country landscape before you reached the junction of roads at Hammersmith Broadway. No great change had then taken place since Addison—who lived in Kensington—wrote to the Earl of Warwick, saying, “The business of this is to invite you to a concert of music, which I have found out in a neighbouring wood. It begins precisely at six in the evening, and consists of a blackbird, a thrush, a robin redbreast, and a bullfinch. There is a lark that, by way of overture, sings famously till she is almost out of hearing.” “The whole is concluded by a nightingale.” Such were the warblers that broke the silence of Kensington woods when no screech of the railway whistled in the wind, and no lumbering omnibuses thundered along the highway. Indeed, I well remember the nightingales in Holland Park, after the commencement of my ministry at Hornton Street. Earl’s Court, even then, was separated from Holland Park gates by a country lane which began at Pembroke Square. But fifty years before, now ninety years ago, it was thereabouts all pleasant open country, dotted with homesteads, paddocks, gardens; whilst at eventide broad green meadows saw “the lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea.” Brompton, included within the parish, extended to the borders of Chelsea, famous for cosy retreats occupied by merchants and literary men. Turning from south to east, there opened, under the shadow of the palace, those gardens which had become famous and much admired in Queen Anne’s time; and after Hornton Street chapel was built, a minute of the Board of Green Cloth recorded that an annual pension of £18 was to be paid to a widow, named Gray, “in consideration of the loss of her husband, who was accidentally shot while the keepers were hunting foxes in Kensington Gardens.” {9a} Lyson tells us that in 1795 there had been new buildings erected, principally in and near the hamlet of Brompton. “The present number of houses,” he says, “is about 1,240, of which about 1,150 are inhabited, the remainder are for the most part unfinished.” {9b}