Transcribed from the 1882(?) Griffiths & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org. Many thanks to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Libraries for allowing their copy to be used for this transcription.
KENSINGTON, NOTTING HILL,
AND
PADDINGTON:
WITH
Remembrances of the Locality
38 Years Ago.
BY AN OLD INHABITANT.
PROFITS OF THIS EDITION GIVEN TO THE BAZAAR FUND FOR THE
NEW ORGAN AT WESTBOURNE GROVE CHAPEL.
LONDON:
Printed by Griffiths & Co., “Paddington Mercury” Office,
58, Porchester Road, W.
Dedicated to my Young Friends.
I have thought it would be interesting to you to know something about the locality in which you live, as it was in times gone by.
The changes have been marvellous, but not more than many others within my recollection.
I knew the time when gas was not used, but when streets and shops were lighted with oil lamps. When no police guarded our streets, but watchmen paid their half-hourly visits crying out “past 11 o’clock, &c., and a starlight night, &c.”
I remember when no omnibuses ran, and cabmen sat by the side of their fares.
When 4-horse coaches ran to Greenwich, Kensington, and other suburban places.
When the only way to obtain a light was to strike a flint on a piece of steel, and catch the sparks on tinder, and to puff at the tinder till it lighted a brimstone match.
When the Great Reform Bill was passing, and I used to be let out of school at 2 o’clock, because the men of Birmingham and Manchester, &c., threatened to march to London—The Tower was fortified—Temple Bar guarded.
I remember George the Fourth’s burial, and the people making a grand holiday.
I saw the procession at William the Fourth’s Coronation, and also at that of Queen Victoria.
“Long may she live.”
PART I.
“NOTES” OF KENSINGTON, NOTTING HILL, AND PADDINGTON.
Before entering upon my own remembrances of Kensington and Paddington, it will be interesting to notice some things connected with the history of these places.
Kensington is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Chenesiton. Chenesi was a proper name, and “Lyson” says that in the time of Edward the Confessor a person of that name held a manor in Somersetshire. It may be that Kensington was once a town belonging to a “Chenesi.” At the time of the Romans this district comprised the northern boundary of the marshes formed by the overflowing of the Thames, Chelsea and Fulham being liable to inundation, but the higher elevation of a great portion of this parish rendered it fit for cultivation.
In 1218, in the reign of Henry III., it was disafforested. Before this time it, with Paddington, had formed a portion of the Forest of Middlesex.
In Henry the Eighth’s time a great portion of Notting Hill and Paddington was still forest as appears from records dated 1543.
In 1610 Sir Walter Cope became possessed of the manor of St. Mary Abbot’s by a grant from the Queen. It is recorded that he died possessed of the manor called Earl’s Court, Kensyngton, with its appurtenances, in Kensyngton, Chelsey, Hammersmith and St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Two hundred acres belonging to the Ould House Kensyngton and all that wood called Notting Wood or Knotting Wood, for which he paid as under:—
| Manor of Abbot’s | £5 | 0 | 0 per ann. |
| Earl’s Court | 2 | 0 | 0 ,, |
| Ould House and land | 5 | 0 | 0 „ |
| Knotting wood | 1 | 0 | 0 ,, |
| St. Margaret’s Westminster | 1 | 0 | 0 ,, |
The Kensington division of the hundred of Ossulstan includes Fulham, Hammersmith, Chiswick, Acton, part of Brentford, Ealing, Willesden and Chelsea.
The name of the hundred is probably derived from the German word Waassel which signifies water. Others suggest Ousel, a bird, Ossultun, a town noted for its birds.