The Kensington DistrictMitton, G. E. (Geraldine Edith)
History
The Kensington District
Mitton, G. E. (Geraldine Edith)
Kensington (London, England) -- Description and travel
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, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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