The Kensington District Part 3

In Observatory Gardens Sir James South, the astronomer, had a house, where there was a large observatory. He mounted an equatorial telescope in the grounds, by the use of which, some years previously, he and Sir J. Herschel had made a catalogue of 380 binary stars. He strenuously resisted any opening up of the district by road or rail, lest the vibrations of traffic should interfere with his delicate observations and render them useless. He died here in 1867. On the south side of Campden Hill Gardens are a number of houses standing in their own grounds, and, from the rank of their residents, this part has gained the name of the "Dukeries." Holly Lodge was named Airlie Lodge for a few years when tenanted by the Earl of Airlie, but reverted to the older name afterwards. Airlie Gardens is a reminiscence of the interlude.

Lord Macaulay lived for the three years preceding his death in Holly Lodge.

Holland Lane is a shady footpath running right over the hill from Kensington Road to Notting Hill Gate; it pa.s.ses the wall of Aubrey House, once the manor-house of Notting Hill. Though the name is a comparatively new one, the house is old and, to use the favourite word of older writers, much "secluded"; it is shut in from observation by its high wall and by the shady trees surrounding it. The building is very picturesque and the garden charming, yet many people pa.s.s it daily and never know of its existence.

St. George's Church, Campden Hill Road, dates from 1864; the interior is spoilt by painted columns and heavy galleries, but the stained gla.s.s at the east end is very richly coloured, and there is a carved stone reredos. The tower is high, but it is dwarfed by the tower of the Grand Junction Waterworks near at hand. Across Campden Hill Road is the reservoir of the West Middles.e.x Water Company, which, from its commanding elevation, supplies a large district by the power of gravitation.

Holland Park is a great irregular oblong, extending from Kensington Road on the south very nearly to Holland Park Road on the north. Its average length is little more than a mile, and it varies from five-eighths of a mile in its widest part to a quarter of a mile in the narrowest.

In the summary of the history of Kensington, at the beginning of the book, it was mentioned that when Sir Walter Cope bought the manor at the end of the sixteenth century, Robert Horseman had the lease of the Abbot's manor-house, and being unwilling to part with it, he made a compromise by which he was to be still permitted to live there. Sir Walter Cope had, therefore, no suitable manor-house, so in 1607 he built Holland House, which at first went by the name of Cope Castle. He died seven years later, leaving his widow in possession, but on her re-marriage, in another seven years, the house came to Cope's daughter Isabel, who had married Sir Henry Rich. He was created Lord Kensington a year later, and in 1624 made Earl of Holland. He added considerably to the house, which was henceforth known by his name. Holland was a younger son of the Earl of Warwick, and after his execution for having taken arms in the cause of Charles I., this t.i.tle descended, through lack of heirs in the elder branch, to his son, as well as that of Earl of Holland.

The house was seized by the Commonwealth, and the Parliamentary Generals, Fairfax and Lambert, lived there. Timbs quotes from the _Perfect Diurnal_, July 9 to 16, 1649: "The Lord-General Fairfax is removed from Queen Street to the late Earl of Holland's house at Kensington, where he intends to reside." The house was restored to its rightful owners at the Restoration. The widowed Countess seems later to have let it, for there were several notable tenants, among whom was Sir Charles Chardin, the traveller, who went to Persia with the avowed intention of seeking a fortune, which he certainly gained, in addition to unexpected celebrity. He died in 1735, and is buried at Chiswick.

Afterwards, William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was a tenant of Holland House; the name of Van Dyck has also been mentioned in this connection, but there is not sufficient evidence to make it more than a tradition.

Joseph Addison married the widow of the sixth Earl of Holland and Warwick in 1716. He was an old family friend and had known her long, yet the experiment did not turn out satisfactorily. The Countess was something of a termagant, and it is said that to escape from her he often went to the White Horse inn at the corner of Lord Holland's Lane and there enjoyed "his favourite dish--a fillet of veal--his bottle, and perhaps a friend." His married life was of very short duration, only three years, but his brief residence at Holland House has added to its a.s.sociations more richly than all the names of preceding times. Addison had attempted from the first to influence the young Earl, whose stepfather he became, and some of his letters to the youth are singularly charming, but his care seems to have been ill-requited, and the famous death-bed scene, in which the man of letters sent for the dissolute young Earl to "see how a Christian can die," was as much in the nature of a rebuke as a warning. Addison left only one daughter, who died unmarried. The last earl died in 1759, leaving no male heir, and the t.i.tle became extinct.

Through an Elizabeth Rich, who had married Francis Edwardes, the estates pa.s.sed into the Edwardes family, by whom they were sold to Henry Fox, second son of Sir Stephen Fox, Paymaster-General of the Forces in the reign of Charles II., through whose exertions it was in great part that Chelsea Hospital was built. Henry Fox followed in his father's steps, becoming Paymaster-General under George II., and was created Baron Holland in 1763. His second son was the famous statesman Charles James Fox. Thus, after the lapse of about four years only, the old t.i.tle was revived in an entirely different family. Henry Fox's elder brother was created first Baron, and then Earl, of Ilchester, which is the t.i.tle of the present owner of Holland House.

The plan of the house is that of a capital letter E with the centre stroke extremely small, and was designed by Thorpe, but added to by Inigo Jones and others. Sir Walter Cope's building in 1607 included the centre block and two porches, and the first Earl of Holland, between the years 1725 and 1735, added the two wings and the arcades. It is in a good style of Elizabethan domestic architecture, and within is full of nooks and corners and unexpected galleries, betraying that variety which can only come from growth, and is never the result of a set plan. The rooms are magnificent, and are exceptionally rich in their fittings and collections--collections by various owners which have made the whole house a museum. On the ground floor are the Breakfast, China, Map, Journal, and Print rooms--the last three known as the West Rooms--Allen's Room, and the White Parlour. On the first floor the most important rooms are the Gilt, Miniature, and the Yellow Drawing-room, the Sir Joshua Blue-room and Dining-room, and Lady Holland's apartments.

In the entrance-hall are busts of the Duke of c.u.mberland, by Rysbrach; Francis, Duke of Bedford, and Charles James Fox, by Nollekens; the Right Hon. J. Hookham Frere, by Chantrey, and others. The staircase has a frescoed ceiling, by G. F. Watts, R.A., who has done much for the decoration of the house, and who lives in Melbury Road hard by. There is on the staircase a ma.s.sive oaken screen with pillars, matching the carved bal.u.s.trade. The Breakfast-room, facing south, is a charming room; it was formerly the hall when the main entrance was on this side of the house. The walls are hung with velvet brocade and rich silk, and panelled with four _arazzi_, enclosed in strips of gold embroidery. The tapestries are Gobelins, by Coypel, director of the Gobelin establishment. The China-room contains some splendid services, chiefly of Sevres and Dresden. The rooms called the West Rooms contain many treasures: a collection of prints after Italian masters, and some of the Dutch and French schools. From these is reached the Swannery, a large room on the west side of the house, built by the present owner, and finished in 1891; here there is an ornamental painting of swans by Bouverie G.o.ddard, which was exhibited in the Royal Academy. Allen's Room owes its name to John Allen, an intimate friend of the third Lord Holland, who accompanied him abroad, and was his confidant until his death, after which Allen continued to live at Holland House. The description of the White Parlour in any detail would be impossible, so elaborate is the decoration of its mouldings and panels. In this room there are two chests, the property of Sir Stephen Fox, the Paymaster-General, and very interesting specimens of their time they are. In the Gilt Room upstairs are curved recesses prepared by the first Earl of Holland, who proposed entertaining Prince Charles at a ball when he married Princess Henrietta Maria; however, in spite of the elaborate preparations, the ball never took place. The medallions of the King and Queen, Sully, and Henri IV. are still on the lower part of the chimney-b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The upper parts of the chimneypieces and the ceiling were done by Francis Cleyn, who decorated much at Versailles; and when the chimneypieces came down, in 1850, G. F. Watts, R.A., painted the gilt figures on the upper portions. The gilding and decoration of all the rest of the room have never been touched since Charles I.'s day. The ceiling is, however, modern, copied from one at Melbury of date 1602.

The Sir Joshua Room would probably be more attractive to many people than any other in the house; there is here the "Vision of St. Anthony,"

by Murillo, also a Velasquez, two Teniers, and many portraits by Sir Joshua, including those of Charles James Fox, the first Lord Holland, Mary, Lady Holland, and Lady Sarah Lennox, whose "Life and Letters" have been edited by Lady Ilchester and her son, Lord Stavordale. In the Addison or dining room there are several other portraits and more china, including the famous Chelsea service presented by the proprietors of the Chelsea Company to Dr. Johnson in recognition of his laborious and unsuccessful efforts to learn their trade. From here we can pa.s.s to the library, a long gallery running the whole width of the house, as a library should do. Besides ordinary books, the library contains priceless treasures, such as a collection of Elzevirs, a collection of Spanish literature, a MS. book with the handwritings of Savonarola, Petrarch, several autograph letters of Philip II., III., and IV. of Spain, and autographs of D. Hume, Byron, Sir D. Wilkie, Moore, Rogers, Campbell, Sir W. Scott, Southey, and foreigners of note, as Madame de Stael, Cuvier, Buffon, Voltaire, etc.

From the Yellow Drawing-room, in which, among other things, is a curious picture representing one eye of Lady Holland, by Watts, the Miniature Room is reached: miniature in two senses, for, besides containing an a.s.sortment of miniatures, it is very small. The miniatures are mostly Cosways, Plymers, and Coopers. On January 10, 1871, Holland House caught fire, and the chief rooms that suffered were those known as Lady Holland's Rooms, on this side. Luckily the fire did not do much damage, and all trace of it was speedily effaced.

Holland House is not shown to the public, and few persons have any idea of the treasures it contains; to live in such a house must be a liberal education. It can hardly be seen at all in summer on account of the extent of the grounds of 55 acres stretching around it, and making it a country place in the midst of a town. It has the largest private grounds of any house in London, not excepting Buckingham Palace, yet from the road all that can be seen is a rather dreary field. Oddly enough, there is a considerable hill on the west, though no trace of this hill is to be found in Kensington Road; it is, however, the same fall that affects Holland Park Avenue on the north. Besides the fine elms bordering the avenue, there are a variety of other trees in the grounds, among them many cedars, still flouris.h.i.+ng, though beginning to show the effects of the London smoke. Excepting for the Dutch Garden, with its prim, though fantastically-designed flower-beds, there is little attempt at formal gardening. Here stands the seat used by the poet Rogers, on which is the inscription:

"Here Rogers sat, and here for ever dwell With me those 'Pleasures' which he sang so well."

An ivy-covered arcade leads to the conservatory, and various buildings form a picturesque group near; these belonged at one time to the stables, now removed. Not far off is the bamboo garden, in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition, with large clumps of feathery bamboos bravely enduring our rough climate; in another part is a succession of terraces, through which a stream runs downhill through a number of basins linked by a circling channel; the basins are covered with water-lilies, and the whole is laid out in imitation of a j.a.panese garden. Alpine plants are specially tended in another part, and ma.s.ses of rhododendrons grow freely in the grounds, giving warmth and shelter. There is nothing stiff or conventional to be seen--Nature tended and cared for, but Nature herself is allowed to reign, and the result is very satisfactory. There are many fascinating peeps between the rows of shrubs or trees of the worn red brick of the house, seen all the better for its contrast with the deep evergreen of the cedars.

In a field close by Cromwell is said to have discussed his plans with Ireton, whose deafness necessitated loud tones, so that the open air, where possible listeners could be seen at a distance, was preferable to the four walls of a room. In the fields behind Holland House was fought a notable duel in 1804 between Lord Camelford, a notorious duellist, and Captain Best, R.N. Lord Camelford fired first, but missed his opponent.

He afterwards fell at Best's shot, and was carried into Little Holland House, where he died in three days. The exact spot where the duel was fought is now enclosed in the grounds of Oak Lodge, and is marked by a stone altar.

To the west of Holland House is Melbury Road, a neighbourhood famous for its artistic residents. The houses, mostly of glowing red brick, are built in different styles, as if each had been designed to fill its own place without reference to its neighbours. A curious Gothic house, with a steeple on the north side, was designed by William Burges, R.A., for himself. In the house next to it, now the residence of Luke Fildes, R.A., King Cetewayo stayed while he was in England. Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A., lived at No. 2, which has been presented to the nation. Little Holland House, otherwise No. 6, Melbury Road, is occupied by G. F. Watts, R.A. The name was adopted from the original Little Holland House, which stood at the end of Nightingale Lane, now the back entrance to Holland Park; this house was pulled down when Melbury Road was made.

Melbury Road turns into Addison Road just below the church of St.

Barnabas, which is of white brick, and has a parapet and four corner towers, which give it a distinctive appearance. The interior is disappointing, but there is a fine eastern window, divided by a transom, and having seven compartments above and below. Quite at the northern end of Holland Road is the modern church of St. John the Baptist; the interior is all of white stone, and the effect is very good. There is a rose window at the west end, and a carved stone chancel screen of great height. The church ends in an apse, and has a ma.s.sive stone reredos set with coloured panels representing the saints. All this part of Kensington which lies to the west of Addison Road is very modern. In the 1837 map, St. Barnabas Church, built seven years earlier, and a line of houses on the east side of the northern part of Holland Road, are all that are marked. Near the continuation of Kensington Road there are a few houses, and there is a farm close to the Park.

Curzon House is marked near the Kensington Road, and a large nursery garden is at the back of it; and further north, where Addison Road bends, there are Addison Cottage and Bindon Villa, and this is all.

Addison's connection with Holland House of course accounts for the free use of his name in this quarter.

Going northward, we come to the district of Shepherd's Bush and the Uxbridge Road, known in the section of its course between Notting Hill High Street and Uxbridge Road Station as Holland Park Avenue--a fact of which probably none but the residents are aware. Above it, Norland Road forms the western boundary of the borough. Royal Crescent is marked on the maps of the beginning of the nineteenth century as Norland Crescent; Addison Road was then Norland Road. Further westward is the square of the same name, on the site of old Norland House.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KENSINGTON DISTRICT--SOUTH HALF.

Published by A. & C. Black, London.]

Addison Road leads up to St. James's Church, designed by Vulliamy, and consecrated in 1845; it has a square tower of considerable height, with a pinnacle at each corner. The chancel was added later. St. Gabriel's, in Clifton Road, is an offshoot of this church, but, curiously enough, it does not come within the parochial boundaries. It was built in 1883.

Following the road on the north side of the square, we pa.s.s the West London Tabernacle, a brick building in the late Romanesque style. Close by are St. James's Schools.

St. John's Place leads us past Pottery Lane, a reminiscence of the potteries once here, round which sprang up a notoriously bad district.

The brickfields were hard by, and the long, low, red-tiled roofs of the brick-sheds face a s.p.a.ce of open ground known as Avondale Park. The Park stands on a piece of ground formerly known as Adam's Brickfield. It was suggested at one time that this should be used for the site of a refuse-destroyer, but it was bought instead by the Vestry for the sum of 9,200 to be turned into a public park. The late Metropolitan Board of Works provided 4,250 towards the sum, and the Metropolitan Public Gardens and Open s.p.a.ces a.s.sociation gave 2,000. The laying-out of the ground, which covers about 4 acres, cost 8,000 more, and the Park was formally opened June 2, 1892, though it had been informally open to the public for more than a year before this date. The most has been made of the ground, which includes two large playgrounds, provided with swings, ropes, seesaws, etc., for the children of the neighbouring schools, who come here to the number of three or four hundred. Just at the back of the Park, on the west side, lie St. Clement's Board Schools, and on the east St. John's Church Schools. Returning through Pottery Lane, we see facing us at the upper end large brick schools covered with Virginia creeper, adjacent to a small brick Gothic church. This is the church of St. Francis, a Roman Catholic Mission Church, in connection with St. Mary of the Angels, in Westmoreland Road. It was built about thirty-three years ago by Rev. D. Rawes at his own cost, and contains some very beautiful panels on slate by Westlake representing the Stations of the Cross, which were the first done on that material in England. There is also a painting by the same artist on the pulpit. The baptistery, added later, was designed by Bentley, the late architect of the new cathedral at Westminster. The schools adjacent are for girls and infants, and the boys are accommodated at the buildings in the Silchester Road.

Hippodrome Place leads past the north side of the school to Portland Road. A great part of the district lying to the east of this, and including Clarendon Road, Portobello Road, and Ladbroke Grove, was formerly covered by an immense racecourse called the Hippodrome. It stretched northward in a great ellipse, and then trended north-west and ended up roughly where is now the Triangle, at the west end of St.

Quintin Avenue. It was used for both flat racing and steeplechasing, and the steeplechase course was more than two miles in length. The place was very popular, being within easy reach of London, but the ground was never very good for the purpose, as it was marshy. The Hippodrome was opened in 1837, and Count d'Orsay was one of the stewards; the last race took place in 1841. St. John's Church stands on a hill, once a gra.s.sy mound within the Hippodrome enclosure, which is marked in a contemporary map "Hill for pedestrians," apparently a sort of natural grand-stand.

The Church was consecrated in 1845, four years after the closing of the racecourse. The entrance to the racecourse was in what is now Park Road, just above Ladbroke Road, near the Norbury Chapel. The district, therefore, all dates from the latter half of the nineteenth century; it is well laid out, with broad streets and large houses, though north of Lansdowne Road the quarter is not so good. It is very difficult to find anything interesting to record of this part of Kensington; a perambulation there must be, or the borough would be left incompletely described, but such a perambulation can only resolve itself into a catalogue of churches and schools. Ladbroke Grove goes down the steep hill above noticed. St Mark's Church gives its name to the road in which it stands: it was consecrated in 1863.

Northward, at the corner of Lancaster Road, stands a fine Wesleyan chapel in the Early English style, with quatrefoil and cinquefoil stone tracery in the windows. It is built of white brick and has large schools below. The foundation stone was laid in 1879 and the church opened May 20, 1880. Very nearly opposite to it are the large brick buildings of the Kensington Public Baths. Between the Lancaster and Walmer Roads we come again to the very poor district extending from the Potteries. In Fowell Street there is a square, yellow brick Primitive Methodist chapel, with a stone stating that it was founded "Aug. 2nd, 1864, by J.

Fowell, who gave the land." Fowell Street leads into Bomore Road, at the corner of which stands Notting Dale Chapel; this is a plain brick building founded in 1851. In the other direction, westward, Bomore Road takes us past the top of St. Clement's Road, and turning into this we pa.s.s St. Clement's Church, opened in 1867. It is a plain yellow and red brick building, but the walls of the chancel are decorated, and there is a pretty east window. The parish contains 12,000 people, and is one of the poorest in London, not even excepting the worst of the East End.

Mary Place is at right angles to St. Clement's Road, and in this there is a supplementary workhouse. It contains the relief office, large casual wards, the able-bodied workhouse, and a Poor Law Dispensary.

Opposite are large Board Schools; the Roman Catholic Schools in the Silchester Road have been already mentioned in connection with the Catholic Schools of St. Francis. On the northern side of Silchester Road is the Notting Barn Tavern, which stands on the site of the old Notting Barns Farm. Beyond Walmer Road, northwards, are a few rows of houses, and a Board School, and a great stretch of common reaching to St.

Quintin Avenue. The backs of the houses in Latimer Road are seen across the common on the west; these houses, however, lie without the Kensington boundary line. A road called St. Helen's Gardens bounds the common on the east, and leads to St. Helen's Church, which is a severely plain red-brick building. North of St. Quintin Avenue is another great stretch of common, and at its south-eastern corner lies St. Charles's Square. The square was named after St. Charles's College, a Roman Catholic establishment, which forms an imposing ma.s.s at the east side.

The College was founded by Cardinal Manning. It was humble in its origin, beginning in 1863 with a few young boys in a room near the church of St. Mary of the Angels, Bayswater. Other houses were taken as necessity arose, and in 1872 the numbers were so great that the question of building a suitable college arose. There was at first a difficulty about obtaining the freehold of the site desired--that on which the present building stands--but this was overcome eventually, and the whole cost of the College came to about 40,000. It stands in a square of 11 acres, and was finished in 1874. The building is of red brick with stone facings, and is ornamented by figures of saints; it is about 300 feet in extent. In the centre is a tower, rising to a height of 140 feet, on which are the Papal Tiara and Crossed Keys. A corridor runs nearly the length of the building inside. On the laying-out of the recreation grounds and gardens between one and two thousand pounds has been spent.

The object of the College is to bring education within the reach of all scholars at a moderate cost. The students do not necessarily become priests, but enter various professions, and in 1890 it was reckoned that no less than 1,200 youths had pa.s.sed through the curriculum. A museum and library are among the rooms. And standing as it does on the outskirts of London, with much open ground in the vicinity, the building is very favourably situated for its purpose.

Over the garden walls of the College we see the high buildings of the Marylebone Infirmary. Further northward are the western gasworks, and just beyond them the well-known cemetery of Kensal Green. The princ.i.p.al entrance is a great stone gateway of the Doric order with iron gates in the Harrow Road. Avenues of young lime-trees, chestnuts, and tall Lombardy poplars line the walks, between which a straight central roadway leads to the church at the west end. The mult.i.tude of tombstones within the cemetery is bewildering. On either side of the way are immense sepulchres of granite, marble, or stone. Some in the Gothic style resemble small chapels; others, again, are in an Egyptian style.

The church and the long colonnades of the catacombs are built in the same way as the gateway. The cemetery contains 77 acres, and the first burial took place in 1833. The grave of the founder, with a stone inscribed "George Frederick Carden, died 1874, aged 76," lies not far from the chapel, with a plain slab at the head.

The roll of those buried here includes many ill.u.s.trious names: The Duke of Suss.e.x, died 1843, and the Princess Sophia, died 1848, both of whom we have already met in another part of Kensington; Anne Scott and Sophia Lockhart, daughters of Sir W. Scott; his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart; Allan Cunningham, died 1842; Rev. Sydney Smith, died 1845; W. Mackworth Praed, 1839; Tom Hood, died 1845; I. K. Brunel, died 1859; Charles Kemble, died, 1854; Leigh Hunt, died 1859; W. M. Thackeray, died 1863; J. Leech, died 1863; Sir Charles Eastlake, P.R.A., died 1865; Charles Babbage, P.R.S., died 1871; Anthony Trollope, died 1882; besides many others distinguished in literature, art, or science.

The name Kensal possibly owes its derivation to the same source as Kensington, but there is no certainty in the matter.

The Grand Junction Ca.n.a.l runs along the south side of the cemetery, and the borough boundary cuts across it at Ladbroke Grove Road. There is a Roman Catholic church in Bosworth Road; it is of red brick, with pointed windows, and is called Our Lady of the Holy Souls. The mission was established here in 1872, and the present building opened in 1882. In the interior the arches and pillars are of white stone, and the altar-piece is a large coloured panel painting. In Bosworth Road, further southward, there is a very small Baptist chapel with plaster front. The church of St. Andrew and St. Philip stands to the east in Golborne Gardens. It was built in 1869, and is of red brick with stone facings in the French Gothic style. In the upper or northern part of Mornington Road, on the eastern side, is a large Board School, where special instruction is given to blind, or partially blind, children. On the opposite side, slightly further up, is Christ Church, a model of simplicity, and within it is light, lofty, and well proportioned. It has a narthex at the east end. The font is a solid block of red-veined Devons.h.i.+re marble. The church was founded in August, 1880, and consecrated May 14, 1881.

In Golborne Road we pa.s.s a plaster-fronted brick chapel (Congregational). The Portobello Road is of immense length, running north-west and south-east. This quarter is not so aristocratic as its high-sounding name would lead us to infer. Faulkner gives us the origin of the name. "Near the turnpike is Porto Bello Lane, leading to the farm so called, which was the property of Mr. A. Adams, the builder, at the time that Porto Bello was captured." He adds: "This is one of the most rural and pleasant walks in the summer in the vicinity of London." So much could not be said now, for in the lower part the road is very narrow and is lined with inferior shops. The Porto Bello Farm seems to have stood almost exactly on the site of the present St. Joseph's Home for the Aged Poor, which is just below the entrance of the Golborne Road, and is on the east side. This is a large brick building, in which many aged men and women are supported by the contributions collected daily by the Sisters. It is a Roman Catholic inst.i.tution, and was founded by a Frenchman in 1861, but the benefits of the charity are not confined to Roman Catholics. It was humble in its origin, beginning in a private house in Sutherland Avenue. The present building was erected for the purpose when the charity increased in size. There is a chapel in connection with the building. Exactly opposite is the Franciscan Convent, with its appendage, the Elizabeth Home for Girls. The building, of brick, looks older than that of St. Joseph's. Behind the convent runs St. Lawrence's Road, between which and Ladbroke Grove Road stands the church of St. Michael and All Angels, founded in 1870, and consecrated the following year. It is of brick, in the Romanesque style, forming a contrast to the numerous so-called Gothic churches in the parish.

If we continue southwards, either by Portobello or Ladbroke Grove Roads, we pa.s.s under the Hammersmith and City Junction Railway, carried overhead by bridges. Ladbroke Hall stands south of the bridge in Ladbroke Grove, and a large Board School in Portobello Road. A little further south in Ladbroke Grove is a branch of the Kensington Public Library, opened temporarily in the High Street, January, 1888, and established here October, 1891.

In Cornwall Road is the entrance to the Convent of the Poor Clares, which is a large brick building, covering, with its grounds, 1 acres, and which was built for the convent purposes in 1859, having been founded by Cardinal (then Father) Manning. The nuns, numbering about thirty, are vowed to the contemplative life of prayer and manual labour in the service of G.o.d, but do no teaching or nursing, and there are no lay sisters. The next opening on the south side of Cornwall Road is Kensington Park Road, in which stands a Presbyterian church, built of light brick. On the north side of Cornwall Road is Basing Road, in which is a Congregational chapel of white brick. In Talbot Road we see the high lantern tower of All Saints' Church, founded in 1852, and consecrated 1861. Its tower is supposed to resemble the belfry of Bruges, and is 100 feet in height. The mission church of St. Columb's at Notting Hill Station is in connection with All Saints', and ministered to by the same clergy.

A few yards further on in Talbot Road is the entrance to the Talbot Tabernacle. The building stands back from the road, behind iron gates, and is faced with blazing red brick, while over the doorways is a profusion of ornamental moulding.

The streets lying to the south of Talbot Road require no particular comment. At the corner of Archer Street, Kensington Park Road takes a sudden south-easterly turn, and below the turn is St. Peter's Church, very different from the other churches in the district, being in the Italian style. It was consecrated January 7, 1876. The decoration of the interior is very elaborate, some of the pillars having gilded capitals.

In Denbigh Road there is a stuccoed Wesleyan Methodist chapel, dated 1856. Northward runs Norfolk Terrace, lately merged in Westbourne Grove.

In it, at the corner of Ledbury Road, stands the Westbourne Grove Baptist Chapel, a fine gray stone building with two southern steeple towers.

The southern end of Pembridge Road is joined at an angle by Kensington Park Road, and at the corner stands Horbury Congregational Chapel, founded in August, 1848. It is built of gray stone and stands in a good position. Nos. 1 to 15, Clanricarde Gardens, and six shops in Notting Hill High Street, belong to the poor of Kensington; they are built on land given to the parish by an anonymous benefactor in 1652. This is known as Cromwell's gift, but there is not the smallest evidence to show that Cromwell was the donor. Lysons mentions the tradition, but confesses there is no evidence to support it.

And now we have traversed Kensington from end to end, and in so doing have come across many notable men and many fair women. Kensington is royal among suburbs on account of its Palace, and its annals include history as well as the anecdotes of great men. Yet though old a.s.sociations live in name and tradition, none of the buildings, as at present standing, date back further than the older parts of Holland House and Kensington Palace, and the greater part are much more modern.

The zenith of Kensington's popularity was not reached until after the Hanoverian Sovereigns sat on the English throne, and this is a mere nothing in time compared with that enjoyed by some parts of outer London--for instance, Chelsea. That there should be so much to say about the district, in spite of its comparative youth, shows how richly it has been peopled. Statesmen, men of letters, royalties, court beauties, and divines we have met. One of the greatest of our novelists and our greatest philosopher were closely connected with Kensington, and the tour made around the borough may fitly rival in interest any but those taken in the very heart of London.