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from time to time reported the condition of the placc to the hoard of guardians. Fifteen med:cal men
have testified to the unhealthy state of the Potteries. The inspector of nuisances has done the same.
...Is there no possibility of cleansing this more than Augean stableP None: the single but
insurmountable difficulty being that some of the worst parts of the district arc the property of one of
the guardians."
Pottery-lane still bears testimony to the situation of the potteries in this district; the piggeries
and brickfields persisted until comparatively recent years.* Many of the old houses still remain; a
group of dilapidated one-storey cottages was demolished quite recently, and there are other groups of
cottages still standing in this locality which present conditions of bad arrangement and dilapidation
in such a degree as to suggest their unfitness for human habitation. But to the south-west of the
situation in which these old and badly-arranged cottages are placed, there is a group of streets which
has achieved a yet greater notoriety in spite of the comparatively recent origin of the houses. These
are the streets of what has been in recent years styled the "special area," Bangor-street, Crescentstreet,
St. Katharine's-road, William-street (now Kenley-street), and that portion of St. Clementsroad
(now Sirdar-road) to the south of the Board school. These streets are situated immediately to
the north of St. James's-square, but are approached from the south-east through Princes-road turning
north from the Uxbridge-road.
In a report prepared by Mr. Chambers Leete and presented to the Kensington Vestry, it is
stated that a study of maps, dated 1837, 1846, 1858, 1865 and 1879 leads to the conclusion that the
formation of these roads was first commenced about 1846, but that the majority of the houses were
not built until between 1865 and 1879. William-street was first mentioned in the poor rate books in
1850, St. Katharine's-road in 1854, Crescent-street in 1860, St. Clement's-road (formerly Union-street)
in 1864, and Bangor-street (formerly George-street) in 1865. Oddly enough it appears "that there
has been but little fluctuation in the value of property in the Notting-dale district for rating purposesf
from the time the houses were built until the present year." The houses of the "special area" were
obviously not built for the class of people by whom they are now occupied, though those in Williamstreet
(now Kenley-atreet) form a kind of connecting link between other houses in the "special area"
and the old cottages of the "Potteries." The houses in Kenley-street are two storeys in height, and
those on the south side of the street have no space at the rear. The other houses of the "special area"
are for the most part three storeys high, (some moreover have basements), and have a fair amount of
space at the rear as well as in front.
The writer in the Daily News, of January 24th, 1893, who described "A West-end Avernus,"
appears to have had these streets particularly in his mind, though he no doubt visited also the older
property a little to the north-east of the "special area." ‡This neighbourhood, says the writer in question,
"began to develop when the old Kensington rookeries were swept away, the people migrating here."§
The old Kensington rookeries referred to were, no doubt, Jennings-buildings, on the south side of
High-street, Kensington, the existence of which in Leigh Hunt's time has already been noted. The
inhabitants consisted mainly of Irish people. "The men," Leigh Hunt wrote, "are, or profess to be,
labouring bricklayers, and the women market-garden women. They are calculated at a rough guess
to amount to a thousand; all crammed, perhaps, into a place which ought not to contain above a
hundred." "Baron" Grant cleared away this colony together with Old Kensington House at the time he
was constructing, at a cost stated to have exceeded one million sterling, his mansion and grounds.
The old house was purchased by him in 1873. Thus in the early seventies when, it may be, difficulty
was being experienced in lettingthe new houses then being built near the brickfields and piggeries, some
of the inhabitants of Jennings'-buildings may have migrated into these houses. It is noteworthy that the
first common lodging-house registered in the streets in question dates from 1869, another followed in
1870, two more in 1871, and one in 1872. There was yet another in 1874, and there were two more
in 1875. Thus, already at this time, these streets must have been a recognised halting place for men
tramping into or out of London along the Uxbridge-road. It was during the early "eighties," however,
that the majority of the existing common lodging-houses were registered. (One in 1879, three in
1880, two in 1881, one in 1882, three in 1883, two in 1884, and then no more until 1889, 1890 and
1891, in each of which years one house was registered.)
In 1885, the Vestry's by-laws relating to houses let in lodgings came into force, and among the
houses first placed upon the register were quite a large number (some 200) of the houses in the special
area. In 1888 occurs the first reference in the minutes of the vestry "to any houses in the Nottingdale
district being conducted in a disorderly manner." In the following year representations were
made to the police on this question, and again the matter was taken up in 1891 and 1892. The
question of the "moral aspect of the district" was then allowed to rest until it was again brought
into prominence by the Daily News article in 1893.
The information which I have been able to obtain from those who have lived in the "special
area" for a number of years, confirms the impression derived from the facts above set out, inasmuch
as it seems to show that the present system of letting rooms in this area, if it did not originate, at
*Action was taken by the Vestry io prevent the "illegal keeping of swine" in this locality us recently as
in 1894.
†It cannot be doubted however that there has been considerable fluctuation in the amount received as
rent from some of these houses—indeed at the present time it is well recognised in these streets that if a house is
let out in single "furnished" rooms it has nearly double the rental value it would have under ordinary circumstances.
It must not be assumed therefore that the profit yielded by the property has not fluctuated.
‡Etymologically the designation Avernus might well have been applied to the latter locality, once the site of
the miasmatic "Ocean" described above, with its potteries and piggeries, and from the neighbourhood of which
the birds described by Faulkner had, of course, long ago vanished.
§Dr. Dudfield commenting upon the statement in the Daily News, writes—"This I may say is but
a very partial explanation of the origin of the evil. It began with the clearances in the district of St. Giles',
Bloomsbury, when the slums were swept away to make room for new Oxford-street. This was followed by
other clearances in St. Giles', in 'Camden-place,' Notting-hill, where Clanricarde-gardens now stands, and in
'Jennings-buildings,' High-street, Kensington, which was demolished by Baron Grant."