The Kensington District

by G. E. Mitton

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 pass 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 mass 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 passed 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 principal 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 multitude 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 illustrious names: The Duke of Sussex, 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 Canal 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 Devonshire marble. The church was founded in August, 1880, and consecrated May 14, 1881.

In Golborne Road we pass 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 institution, 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 pass 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, 1¾ 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 God, 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.