The Kensington DistrictMitton, G. E. (Geraldine Edith)
History
The Kensington District
Mitton, G. E. (Geraldine Edith)
Kensington (London, England) -- Description and travel
An old inn called Half-way House stood some distance beyond the barracks
in the middle of the roadway until well on into the nineteenth century,
and proved a great impediment to traffic. On the south side of the road,
eastward of Rutland Gate, is Kent House, which recalls by its name the
fact that the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, once lived here.
Not far off is Princes Skating Club, one of the most popular and
expensive of its kind in London. Rutland Gate takes its name from a
mansion of the Dukes of Rutland, which stood on the same site. The
neighbourhood is a good residential one, and the houses bordering the
roads have the advantage of looking out over the Gardens. There is
nothing else requiring comment until we reach the Albert Hall, so,
leaving this part for a time, we return to the Brompton Road. This road
was known up to 1856 as the Fulham Road, though a long row of houses on
the north side had been called Brompton Row much earlier.
Brompton signifies Broom Town, carrying suggestions of a wide and heathy
common. Brompton Square, a very quiet little place, a cul-de-sac, which
has also the great recommendation that no "street music" is allowed
within it, can boast of having had some distinguished residents. At No.
22, George Colman, junior, the dramatist, a witty and genial talker,
whose society was much sought after, lived for the ten years previous to
his death in 1836. The same house was in 1860 taken by Shirley Brooks,
editor of _Punch_. The list of former residents also includes the names
of John Liston, comedian, No. 40, and Frederick Yates, the actor, No.
57.
The associations of all of this district have been preserved by Crofton
Croker in his "Walk from London to Fulham," but his work suffers from
being too minute; names which are now as dead as their owners are
recorded, and the most trivial points noted. Opposite Brompton Square
there was once a street called Michael's Grove, after its builder,
Michael Novosielski, architect of the Royal Italian Opera House. In
1835 Douglas Jerrold, critic and dramatist, lived here, and whilst here
was visited by Dickens. Ovington Square covers the ground where once
stood Brompton Grove, where several well-known people had houses; among
them was the editor (William Jerdan) of the _Literary Gazette_, who was
visited by many literary men, and who held those informal conversation
parties, so popular in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
which must have been very delightful. Tom Hood was among the guests on
many occasions. Before being Brompton Grove, this part of the district
had been known as Flounder's Field, but why, tradition does not say.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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